So, I Fall in Love With You Again
by Dark Lavender
Summary: Ichigo wondered if Rukia realized how close he came to kissing her at that moment, the sister that he had watched growing up and vowed to protect. IchiRuki Please R&R!
1. Chapter 1

A/N: okay, another urge to write a story, I have no idea where I'm going with this, but please read and review.

Enjoy.

* * *

Rukia let out a shuddering breath as she caught a glimpse of Soi Fong's falling figure in the corner of her eye, an arc of blood trailing after her. The ground was covered by fallen shinigami, their dark cloths melting into the grey backdrop of the battlefield.

It was far too late when they reached the Hougyoku and Orihime, by then Aizen had already launched his attack on the Soul Society with his countless arrancars, including the Espadas. Already without Capitains Kenpachi and Ukitake, Soul Society's fall seemed imminent.

On a far cliff that once stood the Soukyoku, Urahara watched the desperate battle below. He was spared from the battle in order to guard the newly rescued Orihime, who on the contrary gazed at the bloodshed with a wide-eyed horror.

"This, all of it, can be erased." She finally said difficultly and slowly, realizing the gravity of her words.

Urahara didn't even spare her a glance, he thought about the possibility long before when he saw her powers, "All of you were brought together for this battle. Without it, you, Ichigo, Rukia, everyone, might not even be born. Let alone meet."

There was a moment of hesitation before she saw a touch of orange in the horizon fall to the ground, so bright against the grey sky.

_Thank you, everyone, for everything_

"I reject."

* * *

The orange haired boy couldn't help but shiver slightly when he spotted the unmistakable small figure at the end of the corridor. The wooden sword hitched up on his shoulder suddenly seemed very incriminating.

"Ichigo," there was a slight edge in her voice, "kendo, _again_? I don't have time to watch you and that skinhead _play_ fighting for another two hours."

As much as he would have liked to hide the slimy apprehension that slid into his stomach, the voice's owner saw the visible chill that ran down his spine and smiled smugly knowing that the battle was already won.

"Why can't you walk home yourself?" Ichigo wasn't going to give up that easily, the comment also stung a little. "Plus, Ikkaku wouldn't shut up until he beats me. God knows that would be the day."

Rukia scoffed loudly, she's not that easily let off.

"Because, _mother _told you," she was careful putting an emphasis on that particular word, "to protect your little sister from the teenage delinquents that might take advantage of her on the way home."

Rukia's smile widened at the guilt that rose in Ichigo's eyes, who almost automatically returned the sword to the boy beside him and walked to his sister's side with a look of long suffering on his face.

Walking on the path gold with the afternoon sun, Rukia forgot all about the confrontation a few minutes earlier and began talking animatedly about the new Chappy collection. Ichigo knew from years of experience that there would no end once his sister starts to talk about that rabbit, so he quietly trailed a few steps behind her and listened.

The familiarity of these quiet days was comforting. The Kurosaki family, which manages a small clinic in the town, is no different from any other: A father that can't exactly be said as normal, a gentle mother, Ichigo, Rukia, and the twins Yuzu and Karin. The occasional episodes Isshin cooked up certainly added some colours to everyone's life, but the days remained so ordinary that Ichigo had never given it a second thought.

But something always hung in the air, like the anticipation for something that he could no longer remember. He walked unthinkingly behind the dark haired girl, once again amused by how different they were and the disbelief that they were born in the same family. However there was no denying it, the day that he took her, a heavy warmth, in his still small arms was still a clear memory in his mind.

_The kid hasn't grow__n since middle school._

He smiled inwardly, and was suddenly struck by a feeling that he had once been there before, walking behind her on the same path gold with the autumn sun. It was under a different sky, another sort of feeling saturated the air around him, an odd breathlessness. Ichigo found himself so engrossed by the sensation that he gripped Rukia's shoulder with an outstretched hand, stopping both dead in their tracks.

Rukia words stopped suddenly and turned around to look at him, both annoyed that he interrupted her without reason and bewildered by the confusion on his face. Feeling his grip abnormally tight, almost to the point of pain, the panic that rose in her heart made her shove him roughly away. The clean contact with the ground brought Ichigo back to his senses, so much so that the warfare from minutes before resumed full force.

"What the hell was that for?" Ichigo yelled up at her from the ground, favouring his sour back from the fall, the strange sentiments gone without a trace.

"Ask yourself, what the hell were _you_ thinking grabbing me that hard?" Rukia shot back, indignant that he dared accusing her.

She took the look of utter confusion on Ichigo's face as an attempt to weasel out of another argument, so after throwing him a filthy look Rukia marched on home, alone, leaving Ichigo still sitting on the ground.

Finally shaking the bizarre experience from his head, Ichigo picked up his school bag and quickly caught up to the small figure ahead, this time keeping a careful distance.

He wondered, if she would ever know how close he came to kissing her.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Wow, finally done this chapter. The updates might be a little slow since I'm pretty busy with school, I pulled out piano time to write this. I hope you enjoy it.

Please read and review.

* * *

The smell of summer slowly crept into the air, the fluttering breeze brought an odd restlessness to the heart.

Passing by after class, Ichigo couldn't help but linger before the window panes that oversaw the school yard. Strange, he would be leaving the place in a matter of days, where his life revolved around for the past 3 years.

Exams and university applications filled the last few months, so much so that it left him suspicious of the sudden leisure, unsure of what to do with all the free time. The acceptance letter from Keio University, one of the finest in Japan, was just a vindication of what he long expected. In the void of any excitement or joy, a sense of listlessness overwhelmed him.

Tokyo, huh. He silently mused, suddenly unsure.

The thought carried until he reached the roof, his usual lunch spot. Even the simple sight of the open sky brought such nostalgia that Ichigo couldn't help but stretched his open fingers towards it, trying in vain to hold onto the passing time, carrying him further and further away from the memories that it held. The moment was short lived, as annoyance flared up in Ichigo when he caught sight of a shocking strand of red hair before him.

Ichigo watched the said man, whose joke had just evoked a roaring laughter from the bunch around him, with narrowed eyes. Renji always irked Ichigo to no end with his bashful mannerism, it had forever eluded him why Rukia would take a liking in such a person. The two were best friends ever since elementary school, a process that transpired without any awareness on Ichigo's part. His dislike of Renji also began without his knowledge, from the very minute that he had laid eyes on him. When Rukia began attending the same high school two years after Ichigo, Ichigo kept her constantly by his side to keep an eye on her, but that meant Renji was constantly by his side also. The younger two were a surprising hit with Ichigo's friends, and the three's nonchalance about the peculiarity of their situation soon put a stop to the ugly rumours that had been flying about the school.

The group was still chattering on animatedly when Ichigo walked near.

"Ichigo, wipe that scowl off your face." Rukia was the first one to pipe up at the sight of him, "it's the last day of school!"

"All the more reason, two more months of torture with you." Ichigo threw back and sat down across from her, pleased by the fury that flashed in her eyes.

"Don't flatter yourself, Rukia could do without a possessive brother like you." Renji, always to Rukia's satisfaction, came to her rescue. "Imagine all the stuff we can do without this wet blanket always tagging along."

Ichigo wasn't sure how to react to the comment. First, Renji was the one who stuck his ugly nose in and followed them everywhere. Second, the "imagine all the stuff we can do without him" didn't sit well with Ichigo. He was sure that the kid had always had a thing for his sister, and knowing Rukia's maddening naiveté, anything could happen without him there. The last thought suddenly progressed a little further than he would have liked and sent him to his feet, Renji's collar in his fist.

"What. The. Hell. Did. You. Just. Say?" Ichigo spat through gritted teeth, staring down at the younger man.

Renji, of course wasn't one to back down before Ichigo, so he met Ichigo's gaze and yelled back:

"Sit down, you stupid strawberry. Rukia's old enough for you not to be hanging around her head every second of the day, have you not realized that she might want her own life?"

An eerie silence fell on the group of friends around them, realizing the gravity of Renji's words. Ichigo seemed frozen in time, his wide set eyes unmoving from his opponent's face. He at the moment would have liked nothing better than to break Renji's neck, but the grain of truth in his words chilled him to the bone.

Does Rukia really want me gone that badly?

"Stop it!" A scream from the said girl brought everyone's gaze to the small figure, shuddering from anger. "You're both idiots! Who said I want either of you to hang around my head?"

With that, she ran back into the building, shutting the staircase door with a bang.

Ichigo was too surprised to keep the hold on Renji, he merely stood and stared at the spot that Rukia was just sitting at. Renji through him a dirty look and ran after her. After a moment or two, he slumped back to the ground, stiffly took out his lunch and ate it in silence.

So much for the last day.

* * *

August was drawing to an end, the last cicadas droned on outside the window. Ichigo's last summer at home was at best an unpleasant one. Keigo and Mizuiro of course had called him numerously to go on trips that would "forever mark the end of his childhood", but he knew what those would entail and declined time after time. Living in the same house didn't make avoiding Rukia at all easy, but she was rarely in the house the entire summer, always out with friends on week long trips and spending nights at cram school. It was uncharacteristic of her, who had never been keen to go out or study, but Ichigo was silently grateful. With Rukia so frequently absent, Renji hadn't shown his face all summer either.

At the moment, Ichigo was attempting to pack up 17 years of his life into a suitcase for his departure for Tokyo in a few days. By living in the dormitory, he had thought this an easy process with minimal clothing, several books and toiletries. But only when he began going through things that were long forgotten, Ichigo realized what he had to part with. One such item currently sat on his desk, a picture that he had unearthed from a cardboard box at the back of the closet.

He must have been just 6 or 7 years old, still able to smile brightly in a dark blue yukata at the summer festival. But Ichigo's eyes were on the girl beside him, smiling at a goldfish that he had just won for her. It was her first, wearing the lavender yukata that mother had made her. He remembered that she had gotten lost in all the excitement and he, still clutching at the plastic bag containing the goldfish, ran frantically trying to find her. Both were in tears when Ichigo had finally found her, who had to coax her back to smiles with the goldfish, the redness around their eyes could still be seen in the photograph. He gazed at the small fingers that held onto his sleeve, and wondered what had happened between then and now.

A looming fear always hung in the back of his mind. Ichigo had always felt that no other brother cared for their sisters the way that he did, that no other brother felt the same as he did towards Rukia. Deep into the night, when he woke up from a dream that he couldn't remember, a startling realization would surface in his mind, something he would do anything to forget.

A soft knock roused him from his thoughts, and Ichigo opened the door without a thought as to who it might be. It was Rukia, standing sheepishly at the door asking if she could come in. Ichigo was unaccustomed to receiving such politeness from Rukia, who had always barged into his room without asking.

"If you don't mind the mess." Ichigo said, acting like a stranger too.

Rukia walked past him into the almost empty room and sat down on his bed. She looked down at her dangling feet and took a deep breath before she spoke:

"Renji, doesn't think before he talks sometimes…" Her soft voice floated across the room.

"But is it true?" Ichigo felt his heart quicken at the mention of the subject, he thought he had long made peace with it.

"No." Rukia said slowly, measuring each word, "it's just that you made me feel…. That is, sometimes…"

Ichigo laughed mockingly inside, knowing that from her reluctance it must have been true, that his sister had finally grown up and grew tired of him. Feeling that he was about to leave anyways, Ichigo waved a dismissive hand and forced an easy smile:

"Never mind, let's talk about something else." He settled beside Rukia on the bed and stared at the blank wall before him when she spoke.

"Are you really leaving? So much for your last summer at home." An unhappy note in her voice peaked Ichigo's interest.

"Yep. Don't say that you are sorry to see me go?" A smirk crept up on his face, grabbing on to the last chance to tease her.

"No!" Rukia answered a little too quickly, "with you gone, no one would fight with Dad anymore, that's all."

Ichigo was satisfied with the knowledge that despite her reluctance to admit it, she would still miss him. It was enough, enough to move on with life, away from her. Silence fell, and Rukia got up to leave.

He was suddenly taken by that same feeling again, that they had been here once before, under a different sky, in a different time. So before Rukia's hand could reach the door's handle, she felt against her back the erratic unrest of his heart. She let out a slight gasp, shocked by the sudden hold that enveloped her entirely.

He gathered her into an even smaller bundle in his arms, his face buried against her neck. His hot breath and racing heart made a rhythm of their own, so deafening that she was lost for a moment. Her knees threatened to give out if she stayed in his hold any longer, but she could not bring herself to break away from him. Gradually, Rukia leaned back into him, the back of her head resting against his shoulder. Ichigo turned her around, and she was surprised to see on his face a confusion so profound that he seemed pained by it.

"Just for a day… Just this once."

His face dropped so closely to her that his lips brushed hers with each lingering word. The imperceptible warmth shook her to the depth of her heart, he was her-

The thought was then interrupted by the solid contact between their two mouths. Rukia clutched a corner of his t-shirt to her, and so the kiss turned from an instant into a few seconds, until both had to let go to find a breath of air.

There was nothing left to do but for Ichigo to leave the room in confirmation of his life-long fear.

"I'm sorry Rukia, I really am."


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: okay, I got another chapter out with some free time I had today. I don't think some readers get this forbidden love concept, who tell me that it's creepy. I understand, but I can assure you, it could have been worse.

So please enjoy and review.

* * *

Another school year began in Karakura Highschool, the schoolyard bustling with excited first-years. Rukia found herself at a loss with the absence of Ichigo and his friends as for the first time in 3 years, the school roof was empty except for two figures.

"Sure sucks huh Rukia, back to school again?" Renji asked breezily while lying on his back and looking at the high autumn sky.

"Hmm." Rukia was obvious not in the mood for conversation, Renji found ever since school began. At first he just took it as reluctance to be back in school again, but the mood persisted.

"Don't tell me you are missing Ichigo." Renji sneered, if only jokingly, having no idea the wave that it struck in the girl's heart. Finally annoyed by the prolonged silence that he encountered, he suddenly sat up and shot at her:

"What's with you? You are turning into another Ichigo, with that permanent scowl on your face. I didn't get to see you at all before school started, what happened?"

Rukia turned around to face him and the look on her face made Renji suddenly realized the insensitivity of his comment. She seriously contemplated telling Renji about the kiss, for that she never kept anything from him during the span of their entire friendship, but the circumstances are obviously different now.

"Don't plan on telling me? That's not like you Rukia." His tone finally took on a serious tone.

"Well, neither of us are the children that the other knew anymore." Rukia said lightly, an aching hollowness in her voice.

"If that's the case, then what would you say if I said that I like you? You don't have to be afraid of Ichigo's reaction anymore." Renji said as if commenting on the weather, but the tale-telling blush on his face gave it away.

"Hmmm." Rukia mused. She couldn't say that it didn't come as a surprise, but having been friends for the good part of their lives Rukia found the thought not entirely unattractive.

_Ichigo, I was going to tell you the other day that what I feel for you, crosses beyond what a sister should feel for her brother, far beyond. _

_Forgive me Ichigo, Renji too, but I really should get over my brother complex now._

Perhaps a little dejectedly, she said:

"Why not."

Leaving it at that, she even placed her hand on his fist that was clenched nervously, as a way of convincing herself also.

Renji's head, hanging in wait for her refusal, snapped back at her words and touch, utterly unaware of the void in her words. A toothy grin spread out on his face and tangled his fingers with Rukia's.

* * *

Ichigo looked up at the iron grey November sky with a sigh that appeared in a white plume before him. He turned eighteen merely 4 months ago, but those days before the summer became so distant that he wondered if they ever existed. Thankfully, the kiss remained equally distant, letting him coward away from it all in Tokyo. The day that he left Rukia, who supposedly came down with a fever, didn't show at the train station. Her absence seemed like a cold refusal, a reconfirmation of her disgust and his shame.

For once Tokyo didn't seem such a bad idea.

University certainly counted as a welcoming distraction, the problem hadn't surfaced in his mind ever since his first days of class. Ichigo rubbed the dark bags under his eyes that came in return and laughed ruefully. Keio was an entirely different world compared to Karakura, from the sudden workload to the dilemmas of living alone. It was effortless staying on top of his class in high school, but the hours that he now found himself nailed before the desk could be ranked as inhumane. The extend of details in things such as cooking for himself and doing laundry exasperated him too, making it an accomplishment that Yuzu could have done it so well at such a young age.

"Kurosaki-kun!" A thin voice piped up behind him, crystal clear in the cold air.

He turned around and saw a cloud of orange bouncing towards him. Inoue Orihime, a classmate, was among the few people that disregarded Ichigo's cold façade and whose company he found himself on occasions missing.

"Hey." Ichigo greeted when she caught up to him. Despite she was the same age as him, her face remained unmarked by even that of adolescence, contrasting his premature scowl.

"I'm going home to make some beef stew with kumquats, do you want me to bring some over? The vitamin C is always helpful during the winter." She finished with a perpetually good-natured smile, oblivious to the waves that were beginning to churn in Ichigo's stomach.

"…It's fine, don't worry about it. I have enough dinner left over from yesterday." Ichigo smiled equally amiably, an easy front he had learned to put up ever since arriving in Tokyo.

"Then I'll be going ahead. See you later." Inoue's smile didn't weaver the least bit, and bounced into the distance.

Ichigo chuckling ruefully at the prospect of his burnt dinner, but anything would be better than Orihime's more…artistic cooking. Feeling the weight of the newly assigned paper in his backpack, he quickened his step and looked forward to a long night.

_Please forgive my selfishness Ichigo... I didn't want to forget you. At the last moment, I asked Urahara to shield me with Benihime. _

_So Urahara and I now hold the memories of a forgotten world. We are proof that it once existed, that those people once existed._


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: wow, my first time writing ecchi, I'm never doing that ever again. Well, I think I'm gonna get lots of flames for this one. But I suppose it's a necessary development in the story.

Please enjoy and review.

* * *

Who knew there would be so much alcohol at a Christmas party held by a 16 year old?

Rukia was dragged to one such party that night by Renji and made the pleasant discovery of liquor.

Upon entering, the two were immediately found and separated by their respective friends, who didn't hesitate to offer a festive drink or two. Despite the infectious hubbub, Renji soon declined after sensing a flush rising on his face, but Rukia apparently didn't, as he discovered when finally given a few moments of peace.

Rukia was slumped on a sofa in the living room corner, her eyes stared glassily into space. Renji sat down beside her with a sigh and asked:

"Enjoying the festivities so far?"

"Why did he leave?" Rukia replied as if to Renji's question, despite having no connection whatsoever.

Renji's brow furrowed, he was afraid that he had an idea of who she was talking about.

"He had to go to university in Tokyo, remember?" He said, as softly as he could, as if soothing an infant in a temper tantrum. "You can't be with him forever."

"Then why did he kiss me?" Still dazed as ever, she whispered, tears fell unknowing down her face.

The words took a few seconds to register, when it did, Renji grabbed her thin shoulders and forced their eyes in line.

"What did you say?" Renji yelled so loudly that the noisy room suddenly fell silent, all eyes were on him.

Rukia was scared out of her delirium by the anger in his eyes, and her own words finally registered in her mind too. She wasn't aware at all that all those thought materialized into words and came out of her mouth, she was merely thinking, questioning herself.

The sudden familiarity of the thoughts racing through Renji's mind cooled him somewhat. Where had he felt this before?

Seeing the brief recess in his eyes, Rukia pulled herself out of his hands and went out the front door as quickly as she could.

The embarrassment and guilt fell in tears onto her thin skirt. How ironic, she thought, that she gave away her darkest secret in a drunken slur. Overtaken by a string of sobs, Rukia made a sudden turn and ducked into a small poor-lit path. Just as she released the tears and fell to her knees, a voice appeared above her, incredulous.

"Rukia?"

Rukia lifted her tear stained face up slowly, unsure of the timely appearance of that voice, perhaps a little too timely.

Ichigo was equally surprised at the timely sight of her. He had just gotten off the train from Tokyo to come home for the winter holidays, but never thought this would be first sight that he encountered. Noticing her bare arms nipped red by the freezing air, he quickly dropped his bag and draped his coat over her small frame.

All his life he had never once her cry like that, sobs muffled by a hopelessness so absolute, like the world had just ended. Beckoned by Rukia's begging eyes, Ichigo knelt down before her and let her take his face into her hands. She traced her fingers down his jaw line, almost verifying for herself that he was truly there, and was surprised by their awkward pertusion from beneath the skin. He was much thinner than she had remembered, his face ravaged by fatigue and lack of proper nourishment.

Sure that he was really before her, Rukia let her head fall to his chest and finally cried out loud. Ichigo first panicked at the rare show of weakness from her, but achingly he took her shoulders and pressed her to him, letting her draw from his warmth.

He couldn't imagine what could have made her breakdown in such a way, but at that moment, nothing existed by each other's warmth. When Rukia finally quieted down, he hoisted her up to her feet and began walking with his arm on her shoulders for support.

"Let's go home." Ichigo said. Rukia made no reply, but obediently followed.

Her head lolled lifelessly by his side, her shallow breath with each step made him pull her closer. On the long walk home, Ichigo marveled about the little woman so closely beside him. His attachment for her, for as long as he could remember, was nothing like how he felt towards Yuzu and Karin. There was always the unshakable feeling that he had loved her before, in a forgotten place, bound by another set of foolish rules.

Ichigo quietly opened the house door and half carried an incoherent Rukia up the stairs to her bedroom. The house was deathly quiet, only light breathing from each bedroom could be heard in the second floor hallway. Why couldn't he love her? Ichigo painfully mused as he attempted to set Rukia down on her bed, he had never saw her as a sister and was sure that it was the same for her. Just as he pulled the covers over her and was about to leave, a thin hand on his wrist stopped him.

Ichigo turned around and saw Rukia looking at him, eyes wide open but without a gleam of consciousness. Her pale face shone coldly in the moonlight that shot through the parted curtains.

"We were too late…Brother and Captain were lying on the ground, I almost couldn't recognize them through all the blood. You were injured, that gash on your shoulder, an Espada crept up behind me and you took that hit for me."

Ichigo was vaguely aware of her speaking about the long birth mark he had on his right shoulder, but the rest about Espadas and captains eluded him completely. She seemed more lucid, but her next words took him by surprise.

"Do you remember? When you were Ichigo Kurosaki and I was Rukia Kuchiki, together fighting that one last battle? That despair so dark and complete that it was enough to crush you, I finally remembered it tonight, I remembered it all. God, Ichigo, we wasted so much time."

Ichigo could only stand still to keep the torrent of thoughts and memories from overwhelming his mind. Ichigo Kurosaki and Rukia Kuchiki, the memories that these two names held, how breathtakingly wonderful. God, they did waste so much time. A lifetime of love was already lost, and they were about to throw away another.

He didn't wait another second to lower another kiss onto her lips, who responded in kind. How great it was, to forget that they were siblings, but once a man and woman in love, rightfully so.

Justified in his act, Ichigo climbed onto her bed and under the covers, both began feverishly shedding items of clothing. Without any barriers between them, Ichigo took Rukia's small frame and pressed her towards him, relishing in the sheer sensation of her flesh. She felt so small and fragile that he buried his head into the crevice of her neck and didn't dare to move for sometime.

Truthfully, Ichigo felt embarrassed by the blush on Rukia's face when she must have felt the hard object pertuding into her stomach. But the years of wait left no room for hesitation as he parted her legs and thrusted onward.

He immediately regretted it as he felt her tense below him, her tiny body racked with pain. Rukia's eyes were screwed shut, her eyelashes stringed beads of tear. She bit into his shoulder in order to relieve some of her pain.

"Ichigo…" He could vaguely hear her cry through gritted teeth.

He ceased any movement and held her closer, almost kneading her into him and brought his lips to her ear.

"You know, I never saw you as a sister, I have always loved you as Rukia. When you brought that Renji brat home that day, I thought that you weren't mine alone anymore. I knew that I have felt that feeling from once before, I remember now. It was like the day when he and Byakuya took you away from me." Ichigo's voice grew gruff with desire, Rukia could feel the growing restlessness inside her.

She adjusted herself to accommodate him, encouraging Ichigo to lay her down beneath him and began moving rhythmically.

It was still more painful than anything she had ever felt. Rukia could only hold tightly onto his broad back to lessen each impact. Ichigo could feel her pain, but it was impossible to stop, so he could only mutter apologetically in her ear with each thrust.

"I'm sorry Rukia…I'm so sorry…Please, bear with me…"

Rukia quite literally felt like Ichigo was trying to crush her into him, with each pressing and growing impact. She again found herself biting into Ichigo's shoulder's stop from crying out, but the act only encouraged the man. As a last resort, she tried to pull her hips away a bit every time the thrust came to lessen the force. But he apparently found it unsatisfactory as she felt his rough hands holding onto her sides and nailed her into place.

Amidst the pain and dizzying breathlessness, Rukia was careful to let every detail of this night etch into her mind. How long had they both waited for a chance like this, in two life times? They might not ever get a chance ever again, to leave behind their names as brother and sister and have each other as lovers.

As the force of the thrusts became almost blinding, a convulsion in her lower body seized her. It was immobilizing, his advances deeper and deeper into her, and the inability of her lungs to draw in any air.

"Ichigo, please… I…"

Rukia's breath became so laboured that it was impossible to string together a coherent sentence, but Ichigo was so contained in the heat of the moment he didn't have the slightest care. Rukia's inability to defy him only served to arouse him even more.

Both could feel the nearing end as Rukia snaked her arms around Ichigo's neck and hung on firmly, and Ichigo held onto her hips even tighter determined to make each contact count.

When Ichigo crushed one last time into Rukia and felt her legs entwine and tighten around him, her last word before losing consciousness brought him to realize one unchangeable fact.

"Brother!" She called, in the saddest voice Ichigo had ever heard.

Holding her tightly, Ichigo mutter into her hair:

"I'm so sorry Rukia, I managed to hurt you again."


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: mm, I'm not sure what kind of comments I would get for this chapter, but it seems like I've set up for quite the expectations. I'm sorry if I failed them, and I'm happy if I didn't, but please forgive me if this is not where you thought the story was going.

Please enjoy and review.

* * *

When Ichigo woke up with Rukia protectively bound to him, the room was in the twilight of dawn. Thinking that she was still asleep, he took the chance to ruffle his nose in her tousled hair.

"Let's go somewhere." She suddenly said, apparently awake. He turned her around to face him, and the look in Rukia's eyes was unquestionable.

How wonderful would it be to just be Ichigo and Rukia, to go to a place where no one knew who they were.

"Let's."

On the bullet train to Hokkaido, Rukia was drifting in and out of sleep on Ichigo's shoulder. It was still early in the morning, they left a note on the dinner table and snuck out of the house. Without any plan in mind, the two arrived at the train station and took the first train available.

The world certainly looked very different that morning. It was still hard to believe who they once were, all seemed so far removed from reality. When Ichigo found her in that alley, steeped in a despair so deep that she had lost all sense of self and the world, she vaguely recalled that he had saved her like that once before. The memories emerged as Ichigo pulled her to him and let his warm strength flow into her. The undoubting trust, the relief, it had all been there before.

Remembering their past inability to voice the truth present in each heart, Rukia found solace in their predicament. She thought that God finally decided to pity the two when Ichigo's memories returned too. When she came to this morning, she was suddenly dead tired of the lives she had lived, from Kuchiki to Kurosaki. Rukia wanted to run from it, for a few precious days of normality.

She watched Ichigo's profile from his shoulders as he gazed intently out of the window. That look of deep musing was never long gone from his face, making him seem far older than his age. Was he wondering about the people that they once knew? She had thought too about what had happened to them. Rukia was surprised to find how many people she once knew were in her present life, like Ichigo's family and friends, but a long gap ran from those shattered recollections to the present.

As if sensing her eyes on him, Ichigo suddenly turned to look at her face that was propped up on his left shoulder. A fading gleam in his auburn eyes made her lost sight of who she was, as that look was once etched so deeply in the other set of lavender eyes, evoking a love that was far deeper than Rukia ever knew in this lifetime.

Ichigo smiled lightly at the puzzlement on her face, and dropped a light kiss onto her lips. Both were so taken by their past selves that any remnant of familial connection was completely forgotten, their appearances too suggested only of that of a couple spending winter vacations together.

Everything, their lost world and hell-bound love, all flew away as the train shot north.

Both shivered slightly as they stepped out onto the platform, surrounded by the cold air of their destination. Hokkaido, Japan's most northern point, was the furthest they could get from their home without leaving the country. But it was refuge enough for the two.

In this place, they were bound to no one, by blood or name. The sudden freedom was dizzying, they could just melt into the currents of people heading in every direction and never be found again.

When Ichigo held out his hand, Rukia took it with a smile, something he had not seen in a long time. But he was quick to discover that no matter how many shop windows they had passed, all decorated glamorously enough to charm any young girl's heart, Rukia's eyes retained a detachment that was premature for her appearance. Even when Ichigo tried to consolingly point out a Chappy item that was yet in her collection, she only smiled lightly and didn't give any a second glance. That familiarly sober persona made him feel like he was the younger one of the two, a sensation that was strangely nostalgic.

Unbeknownst to Ichigo, he was attracting quite a few lasting glances from women passing by. The angular lines of his features, now finally lost the last few traces of childhood, was softened by the unquestioning adoration for the young woman beside him.

Rukia was slowly beginning to lag behind, clearly tired, so Ichigo proposed that they stop in a small café ahead. The place was dazzling bright with the tepid winter sun filtered through the large windows, at the moment filled with what seemed like a bunch of university students who were just glad to be away from school.

Unlike Rukia who had reverted completely back to her previous identity, Ichigo was suddenly reminded of what he would have to return to and wondered if that was what drew the line between him and her in this lifetime. Living with ugly ambiguities, is that what adulthood meant, that despite their deliberate escape the worries of tomorrow would still follow?

When the server brought their coffee, Rukia took a cautious sip and asked:

"What were you thinking about on the train?" She tried to keep her tone as light as possible.

Ichigo was taken off guard, he wasn't aware that she had been looking at him for that long. A lie would have been easy to tell, but he didn't.

"I was thinking about Orihime." He simply said.

One of Rukia's eyebrows corked up when she heard the name. Surprisingly of all the people she remembered, she hadn't thought about that woman at all. Perhaps it was because of the minor waves that the name struck up as Rukia remembered her past affections for Ichigo.

"Why her all of a sudden?"

Ichigo could hear a light note of poorly disguised jealousy in her voice. He wasn't sure of why, as he never once recalled Orihime and him crossing beyond the bounds of friendship.

"Because she is…a friend of mine in Tokyo, at the university." Ichigo felt the admission itself sounded incriminating, like Rukia's jealousy was warranted.

"Oh." She finished lamely, looking down to her cup, quietly surprised by the chance of such a coincidence. A discomfort persisted despite however hard she tried to rationalize it.

Ichigo smiled knowingly, reaching across the table and took her by the chin.

"Your life belonged to me since the day I stood before the Soukyoku for you, no one can take it away from me, not even you. Remember that."

Stepping out of the coffee shop, hand in hand with Ichigo, Rukia was truly grateful that her life was in his hands.

Lying on the hotel bed, Rukia finally felt the toll of the day's activity. Hearing the run of water stop in the adjacent bathroom, she crawled under the thick covers and left the other side of the bed open for Ichigo. Seeing him clad in a loose t-shirt and quickly drying his hair with a towel, Rukia was unconsciously beginning to understand the glances that he received during the day. All traces of that brash little brat who unapologetically planted a foot in her backside were gone, instead a full grown man stood before her in the dim lit room. His broad back looked ready for a woman to lean on, shielding her from all the troubles in the world. Ichigo would never know how glad Rukia was that he reserved that place for her.

The thought of making a wisecrack about her horrible sleeping positions crossed Ichigo's mind, but he decided against it in light of the situation. He walked over to the bed and settled in beside her, as if that was the most natural thing in the world, and turned off the lamp.

Rukia never was one for darkness, not the ugly memories that it evoked. She much preferred the moon that shone through the half-parted curtains in her own bedroom, but the closed blinds in the hotel room rendered everything in an impenetrable darkness. Rukia whispered to the man beside her, checking if he was on the other side of the darkness.

"Ichigo?"

Rukia heard a light chuckle and felt a pair of hands on her shoulders that pulled her to a familiar warmth, holding her there. Like two orphans trying to find solace in each other's warmth on a winter's night, she burrowed even deeper into Ichigo's chest. Soon, she succumbed to the day's fatigue and fell into a deep slumber.

At that moment, being in such close contact with her brought out the deepest despair in Ichigo's mind. However tightly he tried to bind her to him, something in the deep crevices of his mind told him that she was going to disappear, just as Rukia Kuchiki did.

But how?

As he too began to feel the pull of sleep, a malicious smile floated before his eyes, plastered on lips that were chillingly white.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: This chapter took me a long time to write, the feeling was just really hard to put into words articulately. But I hope you enjoy this one, and if it's not what you expected, I really hope you would be easy on the flames.

Other wise, enjoy and review.

Also, Merry Christmas

* * *

From the ink black sky it blossomed, the snow fell.

The lights of green and red shone at them from everywhere as they silently walked. It looked like a brilliant festival that was suddenly without the celebrators, giving the scene a special clarity.

"I wonder where all the people are." Rukia looked around the city that was nothing but bustling the day before. The streets too were empty except for a few cars hurrying by, all probably on their way to someplace warm and full of people, where they should be on Christmas Eve.

"Probably all at home, with their families." Ichigo answered nonchalantly, as if it as the most obvious answer in the world. With that, he felt the fingers held in his hand fidget uneasily.

The same peculiarity rose in both minds. To talk so coolly about it on the streets of an unknown city while their family was alive and well on the other side of the country could really be considered a gross contradiction. But Rukia asked something that had never occurred to Ichigo:

"What does family mean to the likes of me? Can I still live in the house, saying 'mother' and 'father' as if nothing had happened?" Rukia said, eyes downcast. She then felt a finger on her lips, and Ichigo's face suddenly magnified before her.

"That's enough," he hushed, like she was a spoiled child, "let's dream a while longer, just a little while longer." Ichigo repeated, as if wishing to himself too.

Rukia realized the futility of anymore words, so she gave him a smile and obedient nod. To someone who had been a shinigami for as long as she had, "today" and "tomorrow" really had no difference in a lifetime of centuries, but when they arrived under the giant Christmas tree that stood in the center of the square, both faces illuminated by the glow of the star nestled on top, Rukia understood Ichigo's plead.

_I don't want to wake up…_

In the brightness sharp against the dark sky, she saw what allowed Ichigo to survive each fatal battle and stand up after every blow, the human greed for possibilities. To return home, would be the utter destruction of any hope of what could be. Rukia was struck breathless by the totality of that realization.

"You knew it all along, didn't you?" Rukia muttered into his chest as she permitted herself to be held in his arms.

Ichigo could say nothing but tightened his hold on her as a confirmation. He knew that when she realizes the reality that was always there, the spell of the time that they spent together would come to an end.

Once it did, they could never return.

The two were silent on the way back to the hotel, both musing about what awaited them once they return. Whether it was the pale repetition of Ichigo's studies or Rukia's inevitable confrontation with Renji, neither sounded attractive at the moment.

Taking turns to thaw the deep chill in their bones under the shower of hot water, Ichigo and Rukia found themselves under the same covers again. Perhaps it was the thought that it would be their last night together, Ichigo pressed Rukia beneath him and began kissing her intrusively, the entire process transpired without a single word from either party. She responded to his touch cooperatively and gave no struggle, tangling herself with him to feel the most of him.

It felt utterly different from the last time, when they were reacquainting themselves after so long a separation, a desperation filled the two as they knew that the memory of every kiss and touch now would have to last a lifetime.

He put his hands under her legs and hoisted her up to his level, desire swelling up in him. Running his finger down the insides of her thighs, Rukia shuddered each time as Ichigo's fingers ventured higher and higher. As Rukia felt a rush of warm moisture flowing down to where his restless hands were, she knew that her body and soul now were entirely in his control. When his burning fingers began brushing by the dark crevice between her legs, she could only lie helpless to his touch.

"Please Ichigo…. Please…" What was she begging for, she didn't even know. All blood seem to have drained from her brain, along with her lungs' inability to draw in any air, her world was beginning to spin.

Feeling the shatter that ran through Rukia, Ichigo stopped his hands and asked her guiltily:

"I'm sorry…did I hurt you again?"

Finally allowed some respite, Rukia smiled lightly when hearing his words and pulled his head to her shoulder, letting him lie there like a child.

"Idiot, stop apologizing." She ran her hands through his hair, matte on his forehead, comfortingly warm. "I was yours ever since that day you stopped the Soukyoku for me, you said it yourself, remember?"

The words brought a smile to Ichigo's lips too, who was once again touched by her quiet strength, the one who always tried to hold the weight of the world on her shoulders.

"Mm."

Feeling Rukia relinquishing her hold on his head, Ichigo lifted up her hips and eased himself in, trying to hurt her as little as possible. Rukia still tensed with a searing pain as she felt the alien object push into her, but bit back a cry as she knew that this would be last time where they could be as close as two bodies can ever be. Making sure that he went in as far as he could, Ichigo took the care to move as slowly as possible, to remember every sensation of Rukia around him, for it all be vivid enough to stay forever.

She knew his painstaking effort to not hurt her, so she tightened her legs and pressed herself around Ichigo every time he came into her, to let him feel and remember the most of her. At such provocation, Ichigo's control was beginning to crumble and couldn't help but began moving faster, to satisfy the instinctual hunger between a man and woman. The pain lessened compared to last time, so Rukia clutched his shoulders and wound her legs around his waist, moving with him, letting him claim her.

He called her name each time he pushed into her, powerless in the body that no longer seemed to be in his control. Guilt and desire mingled in his voice,

"It's okay, it's okay." Rukia ran her hand down his sweat moisten neck, soothing him. Despite the indescribable pleasure that ran through her every time he thrust deep into her, tears fell down her face as a sadness overwhelmed her. The finality of that night ran through her head like a mantra.

_Please, let me keep on dreaming…I never want to wake up._

Ichigo was vaguely aware of her quiet cries, each responding to him calling her name. How sad were her whimpering, paining him as he knew that she too, was struggling to keep away the tomorrow that was inevitably coming.

Finally Ichigo yelled out her name with an unprecedented force and pressed her hips to his, dug as deeply in her as he could. Rukia's small frame trembled under him as his warmth pulsated through her again and again, at last finding the fulfillment she didn't know she had been lacking.

"Ichigo," still not quite steady in Ichigo's arms, Rukia asked him with her eyes closed against the tears, "tell me I don't have to do this again, never with anyone else for the rest of my life."

Ichigo's heart shook at her barely audible words, it was hard to believe that such words could be uttered by such a fragile woman. As if it could lessen the pain in both heart just the least bit, he dropped his face down and gave her his answer as drops of hot liquid rolled down Rukia's neck.

Rukia couldn't tell when exactly she had fallen asleep, only when she sudden awoke to an unfamiliar air radiating from beside her. No trace of sleep remained in her eyes when they suddenly flew open. The aura was chilling enough that she didn't dare look over to the man beside her, from whom it was unmistakably emanating. When she finally found the courage to, she suddenly found herself on that dark battlefield again, seeing that grotesquely white mask in the distance, its yellow eyes fixated on her. Despite the fear that was rising in her, Rukia placed an unsteady hand on his cheek and letting him recognize her touch. She whispered comfortingly into his ear and was glad to feel some warmth returning to his body. When he at last spoke, he was quivering in her arms.

"He's back." Rukia's eyes widened when she heard his words, and knew without a doubt who he was referring to. "I shouldn't have let my guard down, not even the slightest. How could I have forgotten about _him_?" Her heart tugged at the self-loathing in his voice.

Rukia let out a sigh, aching for the man before her. They were like two people stranded on a deserted island, abandoned by their world. It was cruel, to hold every memory and knowledge of their shinigami past, but be robbed of any spiritual power. Ironically, _he_ was the only thing that stayed.

She had naively thought that when the sun rises again, they could do away with the ghost of their past and move on, no matter how painful it would be. It never once occurred to her that something like this could happen. Then Ichigo began speaking again.

"He wanted to come out, I wouldn't let him. He was going to hurt you, for me to let him come out. If you had woken up just a few seconds later, God…" He trailed off, his voice once again filled with guilt, just as it had been on the night of their first meeting when he failed to protect his sisters from the hollow or on that rainy night when he faced the Grand Fisher. "I know that he'll try to get out again, you are better off staying away from me Rukia, you would've been much happier if you never met me in the first place."

She knew that he still felt responsible for taking her powers and her near execution. With a maternal smile, Rukia once again hugged Ichigo to her and muttered:

"Idiot, I told you to stop apologizing."

_Thank you Ichigo, for showing me how to drink out of a juice box for the first time…_

_For letting me belong to someone for the first time…_

_For showing me the happiness of being a woman for the first time…_

_So many first times, so many that I would never know without you._

God please, I never want to wake up…


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: It's really becoming a joy to write this story now, I can't wait everytime to update. Thank you to everyone who gave me such great reviews and I'm glad that you enjoy the story so far. I only hope that I don't disappoint anyone.

This is my longest chapter so far, and I wonder how you would receive it, only well I hope.

Please enjoy and review.

Happy New Year.

* * *

With an understanding needless of words, they checked out of the hotel that morning and stepped on a train home.

The pale blue winter sky was crystal clear, so bright that not a single shadow existed in the world. The stark contrast from last night made the last few days seem even more unreal. Maybe, just maybe, it would mean that they can put it behind them now.

Leaning on each other, Ichigo and Rukia fell asleep soon after the train began moving, as last night's interruption still proved to be too much. They were really just children, forced to grow up in circumstances involuntarily bestowed upon them.

The scenery outside the window changed to vast farm fields and the clear sky grew iron grey, promising snow. Only when the train stopped with a screech the two were shaken out of their slumber. Still groggy, Rukia looked out the window and saw the pale lights of an unknown platform through sheets of raging snow. Ichigo too looked around with puzzlement. A smooth female voice then filled the compartment.

"Due to the snow storm ahead, we will be stopping in Sendai Station until further notice. We apologize for any inconvenience. In the meanwhile, please feel free to rest inside the station's facilities."

Ichigo and Rukia exchanged a weary look and got up from their seats, stretching out numbed limbs as they exited the train and stepped onto the platform. Weaving around grumbling passengers, they walked inside the station and were at once enveloped by its bubbly air. Right away Ichigo saw Rukia eyeing a ramen shop not far from them, and began walking towards it before she said anything, knowing that she hadn't eaten properly in days.

Nothing could have given them any clue as to who they would be seeing when they sat down before the counter. Even when facing away from them while yelling another customer's order into the kitchen in the back, Ichigo and Rukia realized with a start who the dark-skinned woman might happen to be. Both exchanged a wide eyed look before Yoruichi turned around and greeted them.

"My, my, I don't see many young couples around here these days, back from winter vacation already?" She asked teasingly, the same voice, the same impish gleam in her eyes.

Rukia blushed and waited for Ichigo's reaction. When he gave an easy smile and said that she was his sister, she knew that they had finally returned to reality. Ichigo was right, there really was no way back to that time.

Yoruichi showed her surprise learning that there still were siblings traveling together, and chuckled all the way back to the kitchen delivering their orders.

It wasn't much of a shock to them anymore to see people who they used to know. Just yesterday they saw Hitsugaya, at least someone who was him, on the streets of Hokkaido.

The meal finished without a word, both unsure of what should or need to be said at such a time. The re-boarding announcement also sounded timely at this moment, so Ichigo handed Yoruichi the payment and motioned to Rukia that they should be leaving.

The feeling never left Yoruichi since meeting the pair that she had seen them once before, so she said to the blond man, who had just gotten out the kitchen to take a rest, beside her:

"You don't see an orange head everyday," she pointed to Ichigo and Rukia's distancing figures and commented casually.

"Who were they?" He asked with narrowed eyes focusing on the pair, a barely concealed excitement in his voice, as if unbelieving that he had just made such an important discovery. Ironically, he still ended up in circumstances that were really no different from last time. With Yoruichi by his side, even if she knew nothing of their past, Urahara had thought that he had long ago accepted this life, in which he would be able to die a peaceful death. But sight of the two children that day reminded him that life would always deliver a bill to pay, no matter whom or where he was.

"Him and a black haired girl, they looked like students. Said they were brother and sister traveling together. Do you ever see that anymore in this day and age, the big brother with his little sister?" Yoruichi was unaware of Urahara's realization, still amused by what she had just seen.

"You know what else I don't see anymore?" Without a single customer in sight, Urahara looked as if he had already forgotten what had just happened and pulled Yoruichi over by the waist with a mischievous grin on his lips.

_Maybe it's time that I pay her a visit._

It was already night when they arrived at the Kurakara station. The town was completely unscathed by the storm that they had encountered in the north, making their trip seem all the more illusory.

Standing on the doorsteps outside the Kurosaki home, Ichigo and Rukia heaved a sigh as if putting the final period on an old story that began before they were even born. He gave her hand a final squeeze as Isshin's footsteps thundered near. Just before the door opened, both relinquished their hold by a wordless agreement.

"We're home." Ichigo called as the house's familiar warmth poured onto them.

* * *

When Ichigo walked out of the library and stretched out his aching back, he found that the night had already fallen. Thrown back into the tremendous workload, everyday he commuted between solely his classes, library and dormitory. But it was a far easier life, the one without a past or future.

Regardless of what had happened, the world still expected him to act the same way and think the same thoughts, but Ichigo wondered what sort of existence he would have now. The more he looked around him, the more it seemed that there was no place for him in this world. Being a shinigami and holding Zangetsu in his hands, often he found his mind drift back that dangerous but never dull time. But upon awaking to the perpetually tedious voices of professors in lectures and the blank faces of students around him, Ichigo felt like he was stuck in a nightmare that had no waking. He couldn't shake the feeling even when venturing on the ever busy streets of Tokyo, the disorientation deepened as countless people streamed by him, not sparing a single glance as if he was invisible. It was lonely, to hold memorial of a lost world with only one other person. Being surrounded by so many people only served to augment the isolation brought on by such a duty.

Something caught his eye while passing by a brightly lit shop window, elaborately decorated in such a gaudy fashion that immediately made Ichigo realize what he was looking at. It was the opening day of a brand new Chappy collection.

_Another one, huh?_

When he was standing outside of the shop again, he found himself holding a tiny box containing a Chappy hairpin in his hands. Ichigo still wasn't certain how the process had transpired, only that his wallet felt considerably lighter. Even though Rukia's birthday was nearing, she for sure would have bought everything already, so there wasn't much a point to buy it _for _her. Perhaps it was the hazy thought that this would be a piece of her existence near by, a comforting thought that his loneliness was not absolute, that there would always be one other person.

"I didn't know you liked Chappy, Ichigo." Ichigo felt his insides liquefy as he looked up and saw Orihime's amused face, realizing how the situation must have seemed, him grinning like an idiot while clutching an eye-stingingly pink rabbit hairpin.

"I…No, it just reminded me of someone." Ichigo gave up his attempt to explain the peculiar circumstance and said with a light smile at the thought of Rukia.

"I didn't know you had a girlfriend."

"It's my sister, Rukia, she…really likes Chappy, that's all." Ichigo muttered as if to himself, his eyes returned to the box in his hands. And it was so that he missed the complete shock that froze Orihime's doll-like face.

"…Rukia, is it…?" Long after, it was all she could utter in a voice as thin as the night air. Ichigo looked up curiously at her unexpected reaction, this time unsure of how he should respond. His mind whirled at the possibility, the same time suspicious of its perfect timing.

"Yes, why?"

Ever so cautiously, a simple puzzlement, that's all.

His racing heart was pacified somewhat to see Orihime redden considerably under his gaze, as if it was _her_ who had a secret to hide. Bidding a quick goodbye Ichigo walked in the other direction, deliberately slowing his strides to avoid any suspicion, while his face was already a deep red.

Long after Ichigo's figure had disappeared into the night, Orihime found herself standing before the same shop, as if glued to the ground. The fragmented memory was still too hard to piece together, vaguely she had the impression that Ichigo had said that Rukia was his sister.

And his smile when he uttered her name.

With a sigh, she uprooted herself from the spot and began making her way home, feeling like the deepest crevice of her mind was just opened for the entire world to see. The suddenly vulnerability made her feel uneasy, like the lightest draft could blow her off of her feet. If it really was the Rukia that she once knew, the implications brought on by their relationship would be unimaginable.

_Brother and sister…_

Despite Urahara's warning, it never occurred to her that this could be the outcome. To change the past, she sincerely thought it could all happen again for the better. Perhaps this time around Ichigo and Rukia could really fall in love without the restraints of two worlds, perhaps she could grow up with a family and do away with the unanswered feelings, perhaps…

Stepping out of the elevator and onto the floor that her apartment was situated on, Orihime saw a familiar figure down the corridor, one that she had never thought she would see again.

"Urahara!" She exclaimed, her bag fell onto the ground with a thud. Hearing his name, the said man turned around with a smile that didn't change the slightest from how Orihime had remembered it.

"Ah Inoue! Long time no see." He called from the other end of the hallway, the lightness of his tone couldn't even begin to suggest the peculiarity of the situation.

"How… what… How did you know where I live?" Countless questions appeared on Orihime's tongue, who finally decided on the more obvious one.

"Well, if you had been on your own for as long as I had, there are somethings you just… know." Not missing a beat, Urahara said as if there was nothing more natural in the world, so much so Orihime felt like saying "oh, is that so?".

"But, what are you doing here?" Her trembling hands were finally able to insert the key into the apartment door and invited him in.

"I saw Ichigo," Urahara caught Orihime off guard with an uncharacteristic directness, who unconsciously held her breath as the earlier encounter floated up to her mind. "Rukia was there too."

"Rukia is in Tokyo?" Orihime exclaimed, wide-eyed, as she sank into the nearest chair. Her lips opened and closed uncertainly, the torrent of information kept her brain from actually understanding any of Urahara's words.

"No, they showed up a while ago at my shop in Sendai," Urahara's brows furrowed as her words registered fully in his mind, "Why did you ask? Is Ichigo in Tokyo?"

"He attends the same university as me actually, he knows me too. Not who I was, but…I just saw him tonight." Urahara couldn't say that he was entirely surprised that some thin web of relation still bound these children together, but his face still displayed amazement that they had been this closely related

"Rukia, was it really her?" Orihime asked tentatively. Even then she held the slightest hope that perhaps it was all a joke that God so mischievously threw upon them.

"There was no mistaking it." Urahara paused before continuing, the airiness of his tone made it obvious that he was trying to lighten the shock of those words. "He said she was his sister."

"I… know. He told me."

He quirked an eyebrow, afraid that his worry was confirmed.

It was then the two heard a series of rapid knocking on the apartment's door. The tense air in the room was suddenly dispelled by a startled yelp from Orihime, giving her presence away to whoever was on the other side of the door, so she could only give Urahara a nervous glance and walked to the door. Still hesitating slightly as she put her hand on the handle, another string of loud knock forced her to unlock the door and opened it.

"You remembered too, didn't you?" Before she could get a clear look who was outside her door, Ichigo anxiously took a step forward and grabbed her shoulders, forcing her back into the apartment. The intensity of his scrutiny made Orihime lose all ability to respond.

The more Ichigo ran his mind over his encounter with Orihime, the more suspicious her reaction seemed. Her immediate familiarity with him, her complete disregard of his unnerving façade, it all seemed too much to just be a coincidence. By the time he arrived back to this dormitory door, there was not a single doubt in his mind that Orihime knew too about their forgotten world.

"My, if it isn't Mr. Kurosaki!" Urahara's cheerful but equally sly voice called out from inside the apartment, shaking Ichigo momentarily out of his craze. The determination to find all the answers to his questions fell out of him with a hiss at the sight of them two in the same room. The dilemma just grew to a scope of unimaginable proportions.

"What, what are you doing here?" Ichigo sputtered at the sight of the blond man, his eyes wide. "You remembered too?"

"Tsk tsk, wrong answer. Also, it isn't very gentlemanly to grab onto a young lady like that Mr. Kurosaki."

Ichigo then realized his iron clutch that was still on Orihime's shoulders, which he immediately released with an uneasy cough. Without any other option in sight, he walked dejectedly into the living room where Urahara stood.

"Then I deserve an answer, don't I?"

The muddled faces around him grew clearer and the pain in his body became sharper as Orihime told the tale that she kept hidden for 18 years. While Ichigo was secretly amazed by the extent of Orihime's power that he never knew, it was precisely the extent of her power that caught his attention.

"Was it you then…that Rukia is my sister?" There was a slight edge in his voice, it was impossible for Ichigo to fathom the possibility that Rukia, a shinigami and himself, a human, could ever be born into the same family. Orihime could only look at him in wide-eyed terror as his large hands twisted into fists.

"No, no! I wouldn't… I couldn't…" Desperate tears fell down from her eyes as she felt what it was like to be hated by the one person who she once cared for the most, Orihime was about to open her mouth again when Urahara held up a silencing hand.

"For sure by now, Mr. Kurosaki, you are aware of the…guest inside your body." He said coolly, unfazed by the episode that had just played out before him. "I'm sure he doesn't approve very much of Miss Kuchiki, does he?"

"How did you…Why? What did he have to do with anything? I had him under control didn't I?"

"What was the last thing that you remember?"

Ichigo closed his eyes and tried hard to return to that grey field, the ground covered by fallen shinigami. Holding onto the intense pain in his shoulder as cold metal tore through it, he looked around him and spotted the tiny figure. The white band of Shirayuki danced about her while she deflected each attack from the Espada, her delicate face smear with dirt and blood. In that brief moment when he lost his concentration, it became too late for him to dodge another attack launched by the arrancar, the coldly brilliant sword grew larger and larger before his eyes. It was then a chill began to expand from his heart, and his consciousness sank back into darkness.

Exhaling heavily, Ichigo opened his eyes and shook his head.

"He came back, but why? What did it have to do with Rukia?"

"I could only guess that it was Rukia's decision to be your sister." Urahara said, still unruffled as ever. "It was that day that she died by his hand, _your_ hand."


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Sorry for the long wait, exams are finally done for me. Even me, the author, is beginning to wonder where this story is going. I have never actually written a dramatic tale of any sort, and perhaps in the end this story would disappoint the most of you. I'm trying my hardest for this to not turn into a harlequin. I do, though, look forward to your input and critics.

I'm sorry for the short chapter, but I suppose it's a necessary interlude.

I hope you enjoy this chapter.

* * *

"Abarai, Kuchiki already picked up your book a while earlier."

Renji gave a slight huff and made his way out of the classroom to find Rukia. Feeling as if time stood still since two weeks ago, the unpleasant aftertaste thoroughly prevented any enjoyment the holidays could have brought him. Having gone to her house and find her gone with Ichigo on an obviously fabricated trip with their friends only served to deepen the nameless humiliation that rendered him a stark contrast to the holiday scene when walking on the city streets.

He lethargically traversed the near empty hallways, not quite in a hurry to find her and the inevitable confrontation. Rukia did not seem to want to be found either, as she was no where to be seen. As a last resort, Renji decided to venture onto the roof to find her and his text book there, but the still harsh January wind made it seem rather unlikely. Since Ichigo's class's graduation, the roof became the desolate place it was three years before.

As he pushed open the staircase door, which gave a scraping screech, Renji was hit by the familiar vertigo that overtakes him every time he finds himself enveloped in the suddenly open sky. The tall sky of autumn was unexpectedly, at least to him, by the oppressive rumbling of graying clouds. At first glance it seemed that the small confine of the roof was empty, but as he was about to turn and leave, a fluttering in the corner of his eye caught him.

Leaning against the water tower's base, where they gathered the most at lunch time, was Rukia's immobile figure. Recognizing that it was her, Renji quickly walked to her side, all too aware of the peculiarity of the sight. Her breath was quite calm, unlike anyone who had fallen ill or injured, but it was far more worrying that her exposed arms and legs, nipped red in the biting wind, did not seem to bother the owner at all. Looking at her sleeping figure, Renji couldn't help but feel like the scene could not be anymore familiar. Then it occurred to him that, on countless occasions, he had found Ichigo sitting in the exact same place, leaned up against the water tower. Did she find herself drawn to the one place where Ichigo never failed to be at, and sat down in the vain hope to find him by her side again, perhaps even for a short moment return to that breathtakingly simple time?

With a weary smile, Renji sat down beside her and pulled her small frame into his arms, who unconsciously stretched out against the new found warmth. The corners of Rukia's mouth tugged upward in what seemed to be a pleasant dream, and muttered incoherently like a young child.

"Ichigo…"

The breathy name evoked a hoarse chuckle from Renji, realizing with a start who the surprisingly intimate gestures were for. Nevertheless, he held the girl closer and welcomed the cold wind as punishment for thinking that it would not have mattered if he never saw her again.

_

* * *

_

How could you, Rukia,

_deciding all by yourself that you don't want to love me anymore?_

Ichigo felt the chillingly clear liquid burn down his throat, and saw the ghastly pale moon blur into a distant glow. Urahara had left hours ago, when the night was yet full. After leaving Orihime's apartment in a stupor, the blond hair man somehow convinced him to have "a drink or two", which finally began after an extended detour to the liquor store. No matter how bizarre a state they found themselves in, Urahara somehow still remained the exasperatingly shady figure he once was. That, if it can be so said, was oddly familiar and comforting.

As Ichigo poured another glass of the appallingly expensive sake that Urahara insisted on buying, but for which _he_ had to pay for, their earlier conversation was hardly something that could easily be forgotten in a drunken slur. Apparently, the lingering essence of the Hogyouku in Rukia's soul was what awoke Ichigo's hollow. If he chooses to even see Rukia any more, he would only risk loosing his entire mind and life. It all seem planned, a meticulously designed joke to deny them of the thinnest thread of connection, even as siblings. But what rights did he have left of her when he killed her with his own hands?

The irresistible force of tomorrow's arrival made their struggles seem trivial, and Ichigo had long since grown accustomed to the ambiguities of adulthood. To leave would not mean, even in the slightest, destruction of any sort. Morning would come, his hair and nails would continue to grow, and his body would grow old. Ichigo was not one for melodrama, and reluctantly admitted to himself that everything would grind away with time.

His barely focused eyes, while drunkenly swimming across the room, fell on a sheet of paper with a thud. The other side of the world seemed like a far enough place to preserve in both the last wisp of sanity.

_Time to grow up now Rukia._


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: please be gentle with your flames for this chapter. I really have a major case of writer's block, and this chapter has been sitting in my computer for sometime now. I feel like many of you would be rather disappointed by the current direction this story has taken, but I promise you that I don't intend for this to become a full-blown harlequin.

With this chapter, I've taken on a rather fragmented way of telling the story. I suppose I'm going for a vignette sort of effect.

Please enjoy and review.

* * *

A few weeks after Urahara's appearance, made all the more unreal by the equally swift disappearance, Ichigo had vaguely announced to his family in a phone call his nearing departure for Britain. He somehow made the sudden university exchange a matter that was supposed to be taken gratefully. Upon hearing the news, Rukia had to remind herself that there was no reason whatsoever for the sense of abandonment.

The trick, she thought, is never forget how to forget. At that moment, the complete human inability that took Ichigo eighteen years to fathom became absolutely clear.

And she could do nothing but laugh.

* * *

Ichigo found it hard, considering the entire purpose of his departure, to sympathize with his mother's apologetic face when she told him that Rukia insisted on preparing for a test and so was not at the airport to see him off. Karin and Yuzu were certainly too young to still be awake for his eleven o'clock flight, so only his father and mother managed to show up. Since the day that they received the perfunctory notice, the speed at which the entire decision came into actuality still had Isshin and Masaki in a slight daze. The seeming ease of Ichigo's detachment left a certain void in both minds.

Hearing the final boarding call, Ichigo took the for once serious hand of his father's and let his mother run her hand for the last time down his face. Turning around, he tried to walk as slowly as possible and let his lingering figure tell his parents the last of his attachment to them, to his past.

Looking out the glass panels of the waiting hall, he wondered how much tangled thoughts and sentiments the black night could hold.

* * *

When one's life consisted solely of working, eating and sleeping, other's bother with sentimentality began to seem ridiculously excess. All of life's meaning and purpose boiled down to the filled pages of Rukia's agenda book. Appointments and meetings scrawled over every inch, and crossing them off one by one became the joy of her day.

In fact, she was on her way to such a meeting with a client right now. Trying to make partner at the firm, Rukia took the new workload as a welcoming distraction. There was nothing more satisfying than the dreamless sleep that overtook her every time she lied down on her bed.

Human will really is an amazing thing. Like with everything else, she had decided with an inhuman rationality that it was only to her disadvantage to remember Rukia Kuchiki any longer. To have pushed it so far down to the depth of her memory, she was not even sure that she could retrieve it if she had wanted to.

Rukia impatiently drummed her index finger on the coffee shop table as the client was more than an hour late. Stacks of material and forms spread out before her, who had thought now a good time to catch up on another case. Just as she closed her eyes briefly and rubbed her aching temples, Rukia heard a familiar voice piping up beside her.

To Renji, the ten years time hardly left a mark on Rukia's face. But when he saw her today, callous with fatigue, the time when they were sixteen years old seemed an eternity away. However much she avoided the subject, he knew that there was something peculiar about Ichigo's abrupt exit after that winter.

"Leisure time in a coffee shop, that's not like you Rukia." Renji teased her slightly as he gestured to the waiter. Even though the man before her could not be any more familiar, Rukia tilted her head to one side and felt like she had to squint to recognize him. The sight of the once brash youth in a dark suit, telltale of his own success, was something that still felt distant to her. Rukia dizzied at the countless choices and kinks of fate that brought them to where they were today.

"A late client, that's all." Rukia gave a tired jerk of her mouth and drank the already cold coffee.

"Rukia…" Renji knew better than to continue. Twenty something years of friendship tend to make words, among other things, pale. Rukia turned her face away, hiding the same weariness from him, and by chance saw her disheveled client dashing through the door. Renji took the cue and got up with his coffee. Before walking out of earshot, Rukia heard his voice that could have been easily lost amidst the café's din.

"Marry me."

Rukia found herself back on that roof again, sixteen years old under the pale blue sky.

* * *

All except a few cards and short letters on special occasions, Ichigo had disappeared from their lives. He called the twins on their birthdays and sent back gifts, but made no mention of Rukia as if he never knew her.

By the time she had come of age, Rukia moved from the house. More so than Ichigo, she felt disoriented in a family that she knew in a way was not hers. Since then she had kept minimal contact with them and thus had not heard from Ichigo for the good part of the ten years.

On countless occasions, Rukia had been asked if she missed her older brother, and every time she changed the subject with an easy smile. She felt too old for the sentimentality the word entailed. There was nothing more natural than siblings growing up to go their separate ways. Ichigo is more than capable of caring for himself, so why the worry?

It was the first time in months since she had gone to the Kurosaki clinic, the place already felt distant enough that it was hard to imagine she had spent the first eighteen years of her life there. The announcement, while sudden, was not unexpected. Having been friends for a large part of their lives, it was only reasonable that marriage was to follow. Ridiculously, Rukia and Renji found a rare blank on both schedules and set it as the wedding date in an unceremonious hurry. The sight of "my wedding" scribbled in her planner, nestled and indistinguishable between the other meetings and dates, made it seem like it was just another appointment that was to be crossed off when it was done.

Before walking out of the door, she asked almost in afterthought for Ichigo to be left out of the wedding plans. From bits and pieces that she had heard from her parents and relatives, he seemed to have made quite the something of himself in Britain after graduation. Ichigo was too busy, she said to Isshin and Masaki, no need to bother him with such a trivial matter. She had the least of concern for him really, but merely trying to preserve the precious bit of control and solace she had spent the last ten years finding. Uncomfortable as ever with the silence that her request had made in the room, Rukia shrewdly bid her farewell.

Purposefully, she crossed out "parents" on her planner and set out for the next item, to pick up her dress for the wedding. The ghastly difference between the imagination of her ten years old self and present circumstances suddenly took some air out of her. The infinite string of events that brought her to this point today seem like it was already set out sometime way before her birth, too peculiar to have been left up to chance.

Fatalistically, was one way of looking at it.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: wowie… interesting chapter to write. I do appreciate all the feedback I get from you, and with all the requests for a happy ending, I wonder what I'm writing here. I wanted to write a love story, one with perfectly imperfect characters bound in a hopeless love. I suppose I still do, but after writing this for so long, it's time to graduate from such fantasies.

Having become adults, Rukia and Ichigo each have their own burdens of living the twenty odd years they have. Perhaps to another person, thirty years are not yet enough to become weighed down by the realization that there are things in life that one just cannot have a choice in, but for them two, it was quite enough. I guess I'm trying to say that I'm trying to be realistic, and love can be worn down by the grind of time and other loads that come in life.

Of course in the end, I do hope for a happy end, whatever the shape it would take.

Well, enjoy.

* * *

Though it was already May, the relentless rain still left a roughness in the breeze. Rukia thudded her foot a little harder on the pavement to distract herself from the nameless annoyance that was beginning to loom over her. The city always looked disinterested after rain, and the narrow strip of rumbling sky between the jutting figures of the street side buildings made it hard to breathe, as if a whirl wind of grey was collapsing onto her. Feeling unsettled, she walked into the dress shop.

Given the gown that she had picked more out of convenience's sake than liking, Rukia walked into the dressing room. In an industrial manner, she began to shed each piece of clothing. However her fingers slowed as she unbuttoned her shirt to reveal undergarments, taken by the woman looking back at her in the mirror. From her skin radiated a ghastly glow because of the lack of exposure, which even in the dead heat of summer was covered to every inch. How long had it been since she had looked at herself like this, Rukia cocked her head slightly as if observing a bizarre sight.

She fingered her abdomen, feeling always as if her body bore the marks of that night when she was sixteen and if left bare, the world could see the traces of Ichigo's touch as it once trailed down her skin. Past life or not, the truth remained that he was her brother, and there was no room in this world for such a mistake.

Quickly donning the dress, she proceeded out into the foyer where a seamstress stood ready to fit it to her. Rukia tediously stared through the shop window as the woman immediately went to work with her tape measure and pins. After quite a few minutes, she was already dizzied by the endless current of people rushing by, all seemingly in a hurry. Seeing men clad in suits and speaking heatedly into their cell phones, housewives carrying bags of groceries and teenage girls bouncing by in groups, Rukia was suddenly feeling forlorn.

Where did they all come from, and where were they all going? The struggles from day to day, what was it all for?

But she was pulled out of the thought as the seamstress pulled the tape measure from Rukia's waist and turned her to face the mirror, asking her if all were satisfactory. She looked at her reflection, but somehow not absorbing what she was seeing. How did she come to this moment, preparing to marry a man, and where was _she_ going?

In the mirror, she could see through the shop window behind her. Amidst her mind's effort to understand all that she was seeing, Rukia suddenly saw a brush orange drift into the frame, sharp against the grey sky. She held tight every muscle in her body when the said man stopped dead in his tracks, clearly unbelieving of what he had just seen out of the corner of his eye. She knew that if she turned around, that single moment would stretch on forever and he would too.

But then what would they see, that he was left unscathed by the separation and her about to marry another?

Feeling an irrepressible flutter that her heart could no longer withstand, she gave a courteous smile as compliment to the seamstress and returned to the dressing room, knowing that the man had already disappeared from shop window.

* * *

When Ichigo awoke a few mornings earlier in his London flat, he had found the other side of the bed utterly empty. Even without a hint of warmth, he had figured that Senna must have left at the first light of morning. On the table Ichigo spotted a note as he treaded into the rather cramped kitchen.

"_If we meet again, we can say hello, we can say goodbye."_

Senna's sudden departure was not surprising when compared to her appearance into his life, since a Japanese woman was of a rare variety in this seemingly forever damp city. The ferocity of his attachment to Rukia scared Ichigo, so when he had met a girl that he liked enough he made her his lover. Five years that they had been together, neither long nor short, was however more than enough time to realize the insurmountable barrier between them. And Senna was a smart woman, which was why she had left.

Ichigo drank a cup of coffee as he wondered about this recent change in his life. While not constituting as love, he truly did grow to like Senna and regretted to see her go. Much of his attachment to her lie in the fact that she still had a young enough mind that provided sufficient distraction to his and the likelihood of a future. Now suddenly without her, the rooms appeared dull and worn like its owner.

Looking around for the final time, he pushed himself off the kitchen counter on which he had been leaning on and proceeded to the phone to leave a message to his secretary that he would not be in for the day.

Nor would he be for the next few months, Ichigo added almost as if an after thought.

Only when Ichigo saw the blooming cherry trees, it occurred to him that he did in fact miss Japan. Immensely. While it was not even a beautiful sight, the branches beaten down by the continuous rain and the soft petals trampled in a muddy mess on the ground, he was reminded of just how long it had been since he had last seen such a thing. Where had he been this past ten years? He could not recall. A pang of guilt hit Ichigo as his family came to mind. Karin and Yuzu, who must have grown up to be unrecognizable women and his parents' faces etched with marks of time. Though he stopped himself with a deliberate sigh and walked on before he would have to think about Rukia, something that he could easily do now after years of practice.

Amidst each step, Ichigo let his mind float about him, taking in piece by piece this now unfamiliar city. To be back in Tokyo seem to put in perspective the ten years that had passed. The forest of concrete spearing into the sky no longer brought the same awe and unrest that once plagued the 18 year old boy, who now finds himself uneasy if without them. He had also long forgotten the isolation of standing in a crowd, having long learned how to melt into the ever rushing current with the same vacant but occupied expression. Seeing the countless businessmen hurrying by with their briefcases and cell phones, Ichigo for a moment wondered why he was not doing the same.

Humans are really just animals of habit. Without it, it was only natural to find yourself on the streets of a strange city, wondering how many memories were made without you.


	11. Chapter 11

* * *

A/N: Okay, this is an extra long chapter seeing that I probably won't have time to update in a long while.

I feel utterly drained after writing this chapter that I can't supply much of an author's note. Though I assure you, the next chapter would be the far more interesting.

Please enjoy.

* * *

Senna once told Ichigo that when sleeping beside someone, if you match your breath to theirs, you could feel their deepest loneliness, and the exhaustion that they themselves do not even know.

Waking up beside him in the depth of the night, she once said, was as if holding her breath under water that was bone-chillingly cold. She would float in that solid darkness without a single idea of who or were she was. Calling up a frantic flurry of memories to prove to herself that she truly had existed, Senna could clearly see all that had happened that day. The sight of the first light of morning on the wall when she woke up, a hilarious scene on T.V., and Ichigo's face as she bid him good night, the images would run before he eyes like a meaningless movie, her mind incapable of deciphering how one led to the other.

Perhaps it was then that she understood that the darkness was only big enough for one person.

* * *

It was only when Rukia was safely on the other side of her apartment door, she leaned limply against the foyer wall. After a harsh sigh came the reaction that was long overdue.

Woodenly, she got up to put a kettle of water on the stove in the vain attempt to regain some composure. It was utterly humiliating. Everything she had worked for to be sure that she rose above such foolishness, all fell away at a single glance. What had she been doing all these years? Going through school and working for as long as she could remember, Rukia managed to eliminate all concern of past or future and kept herself a convenient distance away. But just like a kite that had been allowed to fly too high, she had finally lost sight of herself.

* * *

Renji's heart hammered at the sound of the kettle's whistle, piercing even from where he stood outside the apartment. He knocked again, harder, on the cold door, as the sound grew even sharper. But there was no answer. Deciding that the situation warranted it, he gingerly inserted the key that Rukia had given him a few days earlier as an act of propriety.

Everything was in its proper place other than the air that was swirling with steam, Renji's hanging apprehensive loosened slightly at the fact. Nevertheless, there was an eerie silence amidst the shrilling whistle that was threatening dangerously. Perhaps it was the distraction brought on by the noise, he expected to turn the corner and find Rukia in a bloody mess somewhere.

Instead, he only found her on the kitchen floor, crumpled like a bird that remembered her broken wings in mid flight.

* * *

I hope that we never cross paths again, Rukia, it is time for you to find your share in life.

Ichigo mused as he stepped onto the familiar path home, even it could no longer be quite said so. It was only seeing her through the shop window he realized that there was really no way back to the past. Far too many people and far too much time had come between them, to the point where neither could recognize the other. Better to never meet again than to see each other in adulthood and its ugliness.

At this point in his thoughts, he convinced himself to stop pursuing the matter. It really was as simple as that.

The first thing that caught his eye as Ichigo walked near the Kurosaki clinic and home was a spot of white flapping in the wind. It, apparently, was a sign haphazardly taped to the clinic door, announcing Dr. Kurosaki and wife's impromptu trip to Osaka. The silly doodle at the corner of the page made it without a doubt by Isshin's hand. Maybe it was the best, for the moment he was not capable of the sentimentalities of seeing them again.

Ichigo was surprised that his keys still fitted to the front door. The pair of keys somehow found their way to his sole luggage from ten years ago, and remained there until he found them when scouring through his flat before departure. Memory and reality seemed to overlap into the simple act of turning the key and hearing the familiar click. Standing on the doorstep at that moment made his time away seem like a mere detour, and he was coming back home at the end of the day.

His footsteps rang loudly in the empty space, feeling as he was intruding on a family not his own. The tips of his fingers grazed the walls as he walked down the corridor, could not help but smile at the familiar sensation. It had been quite a while since his heart had been jarred so by the quiet nostalgia. Ichigo's smile widened as he found the pencil markings by the kitchen door. He traced each line to the names written beside it, remembering his excitement and Rukia's scowl every time Isshin called up the children to see how much they had grown. His lines took up most of the wall, each separated by at least several inches, compared to which Rukia's were pitifully bunched in a small cluster below.

He was glad to be home. Yes, he sincerely thought so.

Suddenly the phone rang, the sound alien to the intimacy of his thoughts. Ichigo turned around and was about to pick up the receiver before he remembered that he was no longer in his London flat. Awkwardly he let his arm drop, admitting that he was no more than a stranger now.

As the phone sounded relentlessly, he would only stand in the middle of the kitchen wondering who it might be. When the voice message came on with a click, he was glad that he did not answer the call as Renji's hurried voice flooded the room.

"Rukia's in the hospital--" His words bursted out at the first opportunity.

Ichigo's head snapped up and stared at the phone as if at Renji himself, but from his voice it was not hard to see the man's anxious face. He took a step closer to the answering machine, waiting for his words.

"I found her in her apartment. She's fine for the time being," Renji's rapid words were punctuated by an exhausted sigh, "she's at the Ishida hospital. Please, come."

Ichigo was ashamed to admit that he had hesitated for a moment as to whether to go see Rukia. He had grown comfortable with the distance he had kept from the memories all those years ago, to leave himself bare for such a complication now would be foolish at the least. But as he looked around the empty house, with its occupants all gone their separate ways, he chuckled ruefully at such a pathetic thought. The idea of family had grown so distant that it took him a moment to remember.

Rukia was his sister, and he was her brother.

The house was once again left in a stagnant silence with a bang of the front door.

* * *

Looking out the window at the darkened sky, Rukia enjoyed the brief moment unburdened by the knowledge of whom or where she was. Gradually the smell of antiseptics seeped into her consciousness and realized that she was in a hospital. Her memories came up blank as to how she arrived there, but the sight of Renji's familiar jacket on a chair beside the bed was reassuring enough at the moment. She stretched out her hand on it, feeling the lingering heat.

Rukia smiled despite her spinning head, picturing the man who once sat beside her. Did he lean over her with a crease between his brow, running his hand over hers? Or did he just sit there, watching her without the least hint of surprise. However he was, she wanted him to be before her now, her hand running down his face and smoothing the lines of fatigue and worry for her.

Her head piped up hopefully when she heard the familiar footsteps by the door, and was surprised by the fact that how something she had not heard in ten years still could be counted as "familiar".

His name hung in her throat as Rukia watched the man at the ward's door, but somehow she could not bring it to sound. She was amused by the thought that it must have been same for him, seeing his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. As if staring right into the sun, Rukia could not help but averted her eyes from his. The sight of him was just too peculiar. The man before her had no connection with any memories of her past, or any visions for the future. His pale face merely hung in mid-air like an unusual puppet without strings, left behind by time in a stagnant present.

She audibly swallowed down his name and decided to keep her silence, clinging pathetically to the last of her crumbling wall that was ten years thick. The man's face gave no reaction as he walked to her bed and bent down at an angle precarious for his height.

"All these years, still no improvement?" Ichigo studied her small frame that was made even more so under the thick covers, she still looked like a teenager if not for the hard lines that etched down between her eyes. Something sickly radiated from her thinning figure, fading in indistinguishably with the sterile air around them.

Rukia dazed for a moment, unsure of how to reply to his endless ridicule of her height. Having heard it almost everyday during her childhood, to hear it again now made it seem like time decided to resume after the mere pause of a decade.

"You cheated." A transparent curve shaped her lips, "you always took the last piece of pork chop at dinner."

And that, was all they had to say. Some things, one really cannot have a choice in.

If Renji had known what he would see when he stepped into the room, he would be awe of his never failing ability to be untimely in all senses of the word. Rukia was always the first to notice the slight change in the air, and found him by the door followed by a nurse.

She smiled lightly at his unease, and imperceptibly pushed Ichigo slightly aside. It was only then he allowed himself to walk up to her and let her held up hand tidy his hair, tousled by the countless times that his fingers ran through anxiously.

"Sorry for all the trouble, Renji." She was grateful, for all the years he had spent with her. But that was the problem, the countless shapes gratitude could take on. So he only laid his hand on hers briefly before letting go to allow room for the nurse to take her vitals. Noticing Ichigo's figure by the window, he gestured for him to follow him out to the corridor.

The two men stood wordlessly in the narrow space between the shelves of beddings and medications, eyes resting on anywhere but each other.

"Are you back for the wedding?" Renji finally said, voice strained.

Ichigo was caught without a reaction. He had no been remotely aware of such a thing until he saw her through the shop window. Why he did not, he could only guess it was Rukia's idea.

"I…Who is she marrying to?"

"Me."

At his age, Ichigo felt that hardly anything could surprise him, and this was no exception.

"Thank you, for taking care of her."

Renji never thought he could hear such a thing from the man before him. But ten years was enough time to change many things, so he only gave a nod and turned around to go back to Rukia's room. The other man suddenly said:

"But tonight, please give it to me."

Ichigo first thought that Renji's bark of a laugh was a mocking denial, who continued walking into the ward. However when he appeared at the door again with his jacket in hand and left without a word, it was obvious that he knew better than anyone that ten years was not enough to change _all_ things.

Among which, matters of the heart, for example.

When Ichigo found his way back to Rukia's bedside, she was already fast asleep under the sedatives given to her by the nurse. He settled himself down on the chair, and leaned forward, slowly letting his breath fall in unison with hers.

Living an empty story, he wondered if that was how Senna had felt beside him.


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Oh man…. I can't believe how long this chapter is. I think this is the longest I've done so far, and I feel accomplished XD

So, I also updated a lot earlier than I had originally thought, I suppose I forgot about the Easter weekend.

I certainly hope you enjoy this chapter, and please leave your feedbacks.

* * *

It was obvious the next morning when Ichigo woke up that Rukia had been watching him for quite a while now. Aches from all over his body immediately followed for he had slept bending over in his chair. Slowly, his surroundings grew into focus. His head resting on the bed beside Rukia's stomach, a hand clutching at her covers, Rukia could see it all. He stirred slightly, turning his head to face her.

The two watched each other indefinitely. Gingerly, she let his tousled hair prick her finger tips, as if they were the rarest of sights. So he was still here, she thought, reality gradually setting back into place to accommodate for the intruder.

"Thank you for coming back." Ichigo felt her pull his face close and touched her cheek to his, her breath fluttering softly as a stranger's kiss. The room was so dazzling bright with the morning sun that a straying hair by his eye looked translucent.

Despite Ichigo's previous intentions, he found himself sobbing quietly into the thinning shoulders that he had pulled so tightly against him.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Ichigo repeated endlessly like a child. His frame draped over her, the contrast between them so great that her figure was entirely lost in his. All except for the astounded eyes, peeking barely over his shoulder.

But if he had known just how soon he would be pulled back into his old life, thought Ichigo as he watched Rukia walk down the make shift aisle in the park, he perhaps would have retained some more composure at that moment. When he was at the nursing station signing her discharge paper that morning, he was spotted by his parents, who had found Renji's message after deciding to return home when their flight to Osaka was cancelled.

Under Isshin and Masaki's insistence, Ichigo moved back into his childhood home. He felt like a teenager again, spending almost the entirety of his time at home and making up for the company that he had owed his parents in the past years.

Sometimes life really works out in meticulous ways.

Ichigo rationalized to himself that he only came to the wedding per his parents' request, even though he really did want to honor his promise to Renji that he would leave Rukia's life for good. His gaze shifted in between the bride and groom, and was boggled by the expression that each held. Ichigo was not normally the suspicious kind, but something left him unsettled in his seat. Rukia had that perpetually quaint smile for the world to see, looking calmly at her destination that was the place beside Renji. But it was the groom who seemed pensive, his eyes narrowed on Rukia. He had finally reached a conclusion in what he was contemplating when she was within arm's reach, and met the distance between them in one step. His lips dipped down to the bride's ear with a light smile and moved imperceptibly. After a few pats on her shoulder, he pulled loose the tie that he had found so annoyingly restricting and walked away.

Murmurs rose all around them like hums of insects, Rukia whipped around to see Renji's distancing figure. The white dress on her refracted every bit of sunlight thrown on her, making her the centre of all their questioning eyes and words. She looked like she was on the brink of collapse, her eyes wide at his abandonment and knees unnaturally stiff to keep from giving out. Prompted too by his parents' pleading look for help, Ichigo quickly stepped to her side and held her arm so she would not fall.

"I can't watch …" Rukia still looked at the edge of the park, unable to tear her eyes away from the busy current of people that Renji had disappeared in. For him to leave her, she truly was alone.

The solution to Ichigo could not have been simpler at that moment. His hand slid down her arm to lock into her fingers and turned to her.

"Ready?"

Any questions would come later, but now he pulled her behind him and ran from the ceremony. The sudden movement seemed to have shaken Rukia out of her daze, who had no choice but follow Ichigo in his firm grasp on her hand. Like children in a game, the two ran onto the street amidst people's puzzled looks and children's snickering. Ichigo suddenly wondered if it seemed like _they_ were the newlyweds, giddily running from their wedding.

He looked around and weighed his options. With their garbs, it was difficult to go anywhere else but home, so Ichigo hailed down an upcoming taxi. Settling a somewhat incoherent Rukia down on one side of the backseat, he rounded to the other and gave the driver the Kurosaki home's address.

Funny how they were back to that Christmas ten years ago, when he had found her crying in that alley. Now Rukia had the same vacant expression as she looked out the car window, her mind perhaps too tired to decipher the meanings behind all the buildings and people on the streets. Ichigo fixed his eyes on her as he kept a disjointed conversation with the driver, worried that her silence was just marking the coming of something irrational.

_The passing people and cars reflected in her eyes…_ Yes, we just came from a wedding… _Her fingers pulled too tightly in the hem of her dress, any colour of blood drained to leave a ghastly white…_ No, we were not going to get married…_ Blood from her lip tinged her teeth…_ She is my sister…

Ichigo waited for something in her to snap at any minute, his mind pulled taut with each alternation between her and the driver. But she remained quiet until they arrived at the clinic door, where he helped her out of the car apprehensively. At the front door he was secretly glad for the keys that he had put in his pockets by habit this morning. In the same fashion as that night so long ago, he hoisted her limp body into the foyer and up the stairs to the twin's room.

Her rather stately dress made Rukia look immensely rigid and disoriented on one of the beds in Yuzu and Karin's room, memories juxtaposing to give the impression that she was a child caught playing bride on a lazy afternoon. Congratulating himself on the idea when he remembered her once wearing his sister's dress, Ichigo rummaged through their closet. He helped the drowsy child into what he would guess to be Yuzu's night gown, not quite a stranger to the sight of her bare flesh. Rukia was void of a reaction too, just letting him position her limbs like a mannequin. Despite the clumsy motions of his hands Ichigo was more than willing as he felt that he had delivered her into adulthood far too early.

* * *

Ichigo looked at the calendar pinned on the wall and sighed lightly. It had been a week since Rukia spoke a word, her voice flown away from her since the day of the wedding. Life itself seemed to have left her too, as she trotted through the apartment like a soulless doll.

He had convinced his parents that Rukia might feel more at ease in her own apartment, seeing that she had not lived with them in years, and took her back here. Since then, he had taken up her household, for the lack of a better description, with all of the knowledge of cleaning and cooking that he had gained from all the years of living alone. To suddenly be back in such an intimate space with her alone was unnerving at the least, since between his return to Japan and the wedding he had only seen Rukia once at the hospital. But again, Ichigo had to marvel at the peculiar way that life solved its own problems.

What Renji had said to her, he never found out. But their effects were blatantly obvious, as Rukia seemed to have given up her ability to react to anything thrown her way. She ate and slept, occasionally stared blankly out the window. Ichigo had sincerely feared that she might just wither away soundlessly, so one day he sat down beside her on the sofa with his tattered copy of Macbeth and read. It was more out of the desperation to have her re-acquaintance than any idea to an actual solution. Her silence was unarming, without any possibility of rejection or argument, so Ichigo found himself occasionally reading aloud to her and explaining the story behind every tear or missing corner of the pages. The one sided conversation grew in length every day, from memories of their childhood to the bizarre characters he had met at university in Britain. He had certainly wanted her participation, but her words remained lost that Ichigo could only be patient. He was though gratified to discovered that Rukia was more that aware of his efforts, as she began to sit on one end of the short sofa to leave space for him whereas she once sat alone in the middle of it.

Bit by bit, light and air found its way back into both hearts. Cups of tea appeared in twos and the sofa was covered by white sheets every night before Ichigo had the chance to put them out. These days and Rukia's silence would have continued if it was not for a dream that Ichigo had that night.

He had dreamt of a long forgotten scene that he had seen by the front door of his old home, when he was no more than nine or ten years-old. It was the summer holidays and Renji was leaving after a day of play with Rukia. As he was about to leave with his mother, she grabbed his hand, sorry to see the day end. The two children's eyes said the same thing:

_I want to play with you forever. _

For no particular reason, Ichigo woke up at that moment, unsure if it was a memory or dream. But as he peered into young Rukia's eyes, he realized children's impeccable ability to know that _now_ is the only time to do things. However immature that notion might be, they would never find themselves wishing for another yesterday. Unable to fall back asleep, he got up to find a cup of water in the kitchen.

As he drank over the sink, Ichigo heard the shuffle of Rukia's feet on the kitchen floor behind him. Her eyes were puffy with sleep and timidity of her hands clutching at the sides of her pants suggested that she too woke from a dream, perhaps a nightmare at that. She jumped slightly when he turned around at the sound of her, who seemed to want to return to her room after seeing Ichigo there. He chuckled slightly to himself that she still seemed rather shy of him after all this time and gave his half glass of water to her. While the sound of Rukia drinking filled the quiet night, Ichigo suddenly understand without a doubt that if he let her go now, she would forever remain silent and this the closest their two lives would ever come to. When she settled the empty glass back onto the kitchen counter and was about to go back to bed, his arms pushed up against the wall around her and kept her in the small rectangular confine.

His scent, his breath, were all too close. Rukia was shaken out of her sleep all of a sudden, forced to look into his darkened eyes. As she understood the event that was to come, her eyes tilted away from his and dropped her head dejectedly. Ichigo knew that she could feel the distance of a decade between them, unsure if it could be bridged in a mere week.

So, he muttered into her mouth.

"I never forgot."

She felt the flittering of his words on her tongue, tasting the sincerity of the man's heart. Air flew between them like ideas, only crystal clear to the receiver. Both were amazed by the slightest of possibilities that brought them to this kitchen's sickly green floor. But at the moment, they were miles apart in the closest embrace. Even though Ichigo's return brought to mind memories that two lifetimes could not erase, Rukia's impending marriage proved to be a convenient excuse to be free from such a bother.

Falling in love again had dangerous consequences. Neither felt up to the trouble of working out the fickle details of a life together. In a fruitless affair, such as theirs, there could only be at the end of which the memories of a tragic love free from the marks of mundane life. In comparison, having to make space in their lives to accommodate the other would only end in the dissatisfactory discovery that the both were just human, susceptible to its mistakes.

What had changed then in the past week?

Rukia's hand crept up its way to Ichigo's chest, feeling the habitual unrest beneath his rib cage that was his heart. She pressed the hand slightly down and parted her lips to ask him:

_Do you know that we have the same blood running through here?_

Hardly warranted as a response, his hand slipped beneath her shirt and covered with it a mount of softness, kneading it slowly. At the same time her mouth left his marking the end of their conversation, her body leaning away from him in uncertainty. But her back found itself again against the wall, so she had no choice but to wait for Ichigo to find the reason for her vulnerability.

Ichigo's other hand brought her to him again and bunch up the one breast that fitted pathetically in his hand, eliciting a sharp huff from the small woman. Gathering her closer to him, she gradually fell limp to his chest, hanging onto a square of shirtfront barely as leverage.

Just as she slid further down, racked by his temptuous roaming on her skin, she felt against her stomach the slight bulge between his legs. Almost by curiosity, Rukia stretched her fingers towards it, feeling the subtle pulses as she laid them over him. Ichigo stopped his hand at her touch, dropping his head to see her looking puzzled as to how to approach such an alien sight.

Ichigo chuckled at the thought and let down his pants. Rukia for a moment seemed taken aback by his sudden movement, but gingerly let him take her hands around his already faintly paining erection. If it was not for the particular situation, her light prodding and prickling would have been amusing as a child unlocking the mystery to a new toy. But when she slowly grasped the essence of what she was to do, Ichigo pulled her entirely into his arms and hung his head over her shoulder, too weak to do anything more than breathing.

Rukia ran her hand endlessly down his penis, marveled at the feeling as they grew resistant to her touch. His breath by her neck was still calm, melting in a warm haze along with her in the entirety of his embrace. It was the most at ease that she had felt in a long time, enough that she allowed Ichigo watch her pull down her underwear and kneel back before him, waiting.

Suddenly it was he who became unsure. The two nights they had spent together as children were for the desperate continuation after the separation of a lifetime, but if he continued now, what would they be? Did they still have enough of Ichigo Kurosaki and Rukia Kuchiki in them to say that they were not really just brother and sister in a forbidden deed?

Perhaps he had taken far too long in contemplating the ethics of their situation that Rukia suddenly in an uncharacteristic hurry sat in his lap, her legs around his waist. Arms wound tightly around his neck, she pushed his erection against the crevice between her legs and bit by bit sank it into her. Ichigo could not see anything other than the sound of her breath by his ear to give him any indication of her intention. When he felt himself up to the hilt in her, Rukia's small sighs and puffs of breath fell away into a string of quiet sobs.

Feeling the solidity of his back in her arms and the fulfillment of their connection, she hung onto him like a drowning man onto the last straw and cried.

"I missed you." Her voice suddenly unlocked and poured out with tears. Like from a rusted machine it came out in more of a rasp than sound, but the words that both had been waiting flew out like a timely charm. The tremors of her body as she cried passed through their place of connection into his and it occurred to Ichigo all that those words contained.

"Me too."

That was enough, to be told that their solitude was not complete and that there was at least one other.

Her sobs were only replaced by whimpers as her warmth began contracting around Ichigo. Neither moved, she merely pulled him further into her and gasped in short breaths into his ear. When her walls closed in around him, Rukia's head was thrown back with a cry.

It was the saddest he had ever heard.

Even after Rukia's breath had returned to normal, Ichigo was still hard within her. So he stood up with her legs around his waist and pushed her in between the wall and him. The inside of her was so narrow that he was sure that it pained them both as he pushed into her.

"I feel like I'm violating a sixteen year old."

It took a while for her to respond, who was barely catching a breath amidst the grunts each time Ichigo pushed her up the wall with his strokes.

"You are."

He stopped and parted their melding bodies slightly to look at her face.

"You mean, Renji…"

"No."

She answered simply before a spasm in her lead her to dig her nails into his back, alerting him of the erection that was expanding painfully inside her.

The betrayal that Rukia felt at the dexterity of his fingers that molded her and the ease at which he called up the painful pleasure in her would come later, when they were back to the sobriety of day.

But as the starry sky of summer shone their lonely light outside the window, if asked, they would say in perfect unison.

How divine it was, to fall in love again.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: I am profusely sorry for the long time I have not updated. I have been incredibly busy with exams and the sort. A huge case of writer's block does not really help either. After facing the computer with a blank stare for hours, I forced myself to write something that is this chapter. Nothing quite really dramatic, but I suppose I want to get this chapter up so that you would not think that I have abandoned the story. Please bear with me, as this story is actually going somewhere. Somewhere good I hope.

Feel free to review and give me your criticisms, but if you just want to read this little piece of sentimentalism, that would be fine too.

* * *

"It seems that I'm always living somewhere damp."

Said Ichigo from where he sat on the arm of the sofa, when Rukia came out of the bedroom behind him. "Thinking of London now, I can only remember the rainy seasons. The sky would be grey for days on end. Mould, it felt, was growing in my heart. But no matter where I go, it never would air out."

Rukia stopped in her tracks, unsure if the words were for her. She moved her gaze to the thundering rain on the window pane, past the dim line of his profile.

"It rains here too. Why leave one for another?"

The deafening rain outside became the silence inside as Ichigo contemplated her question. There was no edge in her voice, making the question such a simple one that he wondered if the answer was really as complicated as he had led himself to believe.

Ichigo watched the grey sky until his eyes watered, slowly polishing his words.

"Remember that pine tree in our old backyard?" His shoulders fell, as if speaking took all the strength out of him. "I suppose that I realized… It's us."

Rukia vaguely saw in her mind the small garden of sort behind the Kurosaki home. As a child, the tree brought her endless amazement. Sharing the same root, by a strange turn the tree split into two just above the ground. Even though each grew to towering heights and had magnificent shades of its own, the two branches were held together by their inescapable reliance on each other.

She stepped behind him and straightened his slumped back in her arms, her voice melting into the spatter of rain. The words were lost before they reached his ear, but that hardly mattered amidst the hum of a lullaby. True enough, he was soon caught off guard by a yawn like a child roused too early of his bed. So Ichigo turned around and made a move to pull Rukia down with him onto the sofa, but the motion was made excessively uneasy by his favouring of his left knee.

Noticing her quizzical look up at his face, he only smiled sheepishly and brushed it off as an accident from years back. After another few awkward manoeuvres to secure her in between him and the sofa back, and finally succeeding, Ichigo drifted into a comforting lethargy. But even such a state, he had managed to tangle his fingers so thoroughly into Rukia's hair that she would have no way to departing.

Rukia was surprisingly alert despite the previous night, and so spent the morning craning her neck back to study the face that staged so many expressions, whose meaning still eluded her. From the quiet animation that accompanied his stories during her silence, to the darkened lust he had for a woman that was his sister, and to the childish vulnerability of a yawn from just moments before, Rukia traced his features like an indecipherable map.

As lightly and quickly as the tear that slide down the bridge of his nose, her finger followed the moistened path over a slight bump that she could not recall from memories of her childhood.

He had left without a word, and ten years later come back to her laden with unknown scars and dreams haunted by ghosts she not know.

Who are you, Kurosaki Ichigo?

* * *

That afternoon, a phone call from Masaki to inquire about Rukia awoke the two with a start, reminding them that the world still existed beyond the walls of the apartment. Seeing that Ichigo could no longer remain with her within valid reason, he returned to the Kurosaki home and began the commutes back and forth. From time to time, Masaki would ask him to deliver pots of food or other as she worried that Rukia was still not in a fit frame of mind to care for herself, and so he would to travel across town to the forest of apartment buildings that always greeted him with a stoic indifference. He would then knock on her door, and greet her with a certain look of exasperation that evoked a smile from her every time without fail. He wondered why he would even bother to hold up whatever he was delivering as a show of the reason of his visit. She had no other visitors and it was not like he ever came because of anything else.

As an unspoken rule, they would share Masaki's offering in silence and only then, can any words be said. The silence might persist for a little while after the plates have been cleared away, but sooner or later someone would strike up a conversation about nothing of importance or propose that they proceed to the bedroom. From political preferences to the secrets of each other's bodies, both Ichigo and Rukia search for clues to help them see each other more clearly.

Thus began an exhaustive game of mental acrobatics to gauge the boundary where "us" ends and Ichigo and Rukia begins, asking things such as "what manner of person have you become?" and "What is the "me" in your eyes?". You know, questions of that futile sort.

But, someone who does not want to be found cannot be found. They have always been fools of the clever sort.

"Yuzu and Karin are back home today, mom asked if you could come back for dinner." Ichigo suddenly broke the silence that always reigned after sex. A severe breach of rules.

She turned to look at him.

"It is unfair to them too, you know. They have no idea how we managed to just get up after eighteen years and leave without so much as an explanation." He flipped onto his back, "But the old man is still on about his third daughter, and the twins are always asking for their 'Rukia nee-san'. You name still holds more sway in the house than mine."

He let out a few dry chuckles and implored her face with such an earnest look that Rukia was flustered like an adolescent before her young lover.

"Nothing has changed, really. It was your home, and it still is. So it will always be there for you to go back to."

The sentimentality of the moment was utterly ruined by Rukia's burst of laughter, and Ichigo's excellent composed face fell in an instant. She had never in her life seen on his face care so nakedly genuine, having finally lost the clumsiness of his youth. Rukia also found herself suddenly so light hearted at the memories Ichigo evoked, of that distant time when they lived in a place called home. Like children that they should be, they ate, slept and played with abandon, letting the days effortlessly slip them by.

Barely able to stifle her laughter into a smile, Rukia buried her face into his shoulder and moments later said:

"Let's go."


	14. Chapter 14

Never did we think that everything would turn out alright just because we loved each other

A/N: ahh, I feel that my case of writer's block has finally alleviated in the slightest.

I hope the wait hasn't been too long. Please enjoy and review.

* * *

Never did we think that everything would turn out alright just because we loved each other. But then again, we have nothing else.

* * *

"Inoue."

Ichigo stared at the woman in his living room.

It was like meeting an old friend at the airport. No matter how many faces you sketch out in your mind and compensating for the long years since you have seen him last, there is always a certain shyness when he finally emerges from the crowd of people. It is at that precise moment that the abstractions of life and time materialize before you. He wondered if this was what veterans feel when they see their old war buddies.

Only a faint gasp notified Ichigo of the Rukia who walked into the house behind him. Like him, she stared at a listless Inoue with equal intensity. Ichigo looked at her with an overwhelming relief, as she was a timely distraction in the suffocating space that he and Rukia were trapped in, Rukia however strained to see through her presence the nameless thing that scared her beyond rationality. But before she had the chance to fully process the sight, she was caught by the twins' more than eager welcome. Surrounded by the two girls' chatters, Rukia's gaze could not help but continue to drift to the woman standing slightly nervously in the middle of the room. Yuzu noticed her wandering attention to Inoue, and spoke to introduce them.

"That's Miss Inoue, she is a new teacher at our university. When she saw our name, she asked if I knew Ichi-nii. Apparently they were classmates in university."

Both Ichigo and Inoue, who was staring at Rukia to the point of rudeness, seemed to be shaken out of a similar stupor at Yuzu's words and sheepishly confirmed the fact.

"It has been a while, Inoue." He smiled genially, suddenly seeming a little shy. Rukia might have slapped him if she had been on the other side of that smile.

After all these years, Inoue still rebuked herself for the slight blush that the sight of him brought. If it was possible, it made her even more conscious of the Rukia who stood behind him. "Yes, hasn't it." She could not help but smiled in return.

Yuzu's hasty introduction of Rukia before shoving her toward the kitchen along with Karin naturally came without any surprise, but something in her eyes made Inoue feel as if she knew something was out of the ordinary with her, a suspicion so evident that it left her unsettled.

Ichigo though was inexplicably oblivious to Inoue's unease and Karin's lingering words about a new sister-in-law or something to that effect. Isshin's absence seemed to be the more dubious circumstance that night. Despite the string of small talk and pleasantries they fell into during their conversation, he was genuinely glad to be able to speak to her again. It was an ease brought by the considerable distance but clarity between them, in which he felt more liberated than even with Rukia.

* * *

Even though it was already the 20th century, Rukia found that the kitchen was still an inescapable domain for her sex. Pushed by the twins into the steam filled room, she was discovered by a Masaki who was surprised in the quiet way that Rukia found so familiar and a more than ecstatic Isshin who was regretfully, bound by probably Karin in a chair.

Rukia found herself setting almost unnoticeably back in with her mother and sisters, save for the occasional groans of Isshin against his constraints that notified his presence, amidst a fine mixture of soups bubbling and speculation about Inoue's sudden arrival.

Despite the growing ease of her smile and even laughter, Rukia's eyes could not help but drift to the kitchen door. By the envious look on Yuzu's face and sound of Karin's mocking confirmation, it almost seemed for a fact that they were witnessing Ichigo's initiation onto the road of happiness. Even marriage, at that moment, was a tangible prospect. Rukia could only let out a dry laugh. How could she explain how wrong that is, while the explanation itself veers on the obscene? It had never occurred to her while she was alone with him, but it suddenly nauseated her to be reminded that she had the same blood he did.

For the first time that night, she was incredibly tired.

* * *

Dinner was served without trouble. Isshin behaved surprisingly like the adult he was due to Ichigo and Karin's stern gazes from time to time. The air too was amiable enough, though it was hard telling who the guest was between Rukia and Inoue.

Ichigo felt lighthearted enough that night. Troubles of the past and future were put on hold while insignificant conversation roamed on about everything and anything. Rukia seemed civil, whose expression reminded him with a start of how competent an actress she once was. His eyes traveled between his sister and Inoue, and it obvious that both sensed that something was wrong with the other, but a thin veil of uncertainty prevented anything beyond pleasantries be exchanged.

Was it by the second helping of the curry that he began to see the slightest haze around Inoue's face? He at first assumed that it was just the wine that Masaki broke out, but he still found no relief when he downed a glass of water. By the time that the plates were replaced by cups of coffee, the sensation grew to a full vertigo and Ichigo was embarrassed by the clattering of his cup against the saucer whenever he tried to pick it up. Seeing that no one had yet noticed his discomfort, he quickly left the table with an excuse.

In the bathroom Ichigo turned on the water and let the sound fill the small room. Tentatively, he held his hand under the tap and was relieved in the slightest as the cold stung his fingertips. After washing his face briskly, he looked up in the mirror and caught the sight of his feverish face distorted through his watering eyes. It did not look quite like himself, he thought. Then a soft knock came on the bathroom door.

"May I come in?" Inoue's voice floated in.

"Y-Yes."

She walked in looking uncertain, and was a little taken aback by the water that was still dripping off of his face. Catching a glimpse of his hand that was still clutching onto the bathroom counter for balance, Inoue picked up a towel from the rack beside her and handed to him. Ichigo was a bit embarrassed to be caught in such a disheveled state, she could see. Watching him sheepishly dry himself off with the towel, she said in her quietest voice.

"Is this what you have decided?"

It took him a while to understand what she was talking about. Ichigo frowned, how could he have almost forgotten?

"That was him, wasn't it?"

It was not a question, and she knew it. A silence heavier than any word spoken fell, and he turned to once again study himself in the mirror. Behind her back Inoue wringed her hands, at a loss of what to do. Ichigo blinked a few times to himself and finally straightened up to say:

"You are going back to Tokyo tonight?"

"Ah- yes. I suppose it is getting late already, I should go."

"I'll walk you to the station." As if it was the most natural thing, he left the bathroom expecting her to follow him.

Instead, she gazed at the half open door without moving and wondered with a stubborn blush. After all this time, he still had no idea. If neither of them were who they were, she might have slapped him. Did he really think that he had not a single care in the world, not even for his own soul?

* * *

"Would she be alright?" Inoue cautiously asked beside Ichigo, evidently a little guilty that Rukia had to walk home alone because of his insistence to accompany her to the station.

"It's fine."

Somehow she was even beginning to dislike herself. She knew that it was just his habitual kindness done out of reflex, but she could not help but feel like if she let her guard relax for even a second she would be back to the fool she once was, cheating him out of the affection that was really meant for Rukia. But she allowed herself that least bit of selfishness, as she prepared her words. To have consciously known that whatever she says would be her last words to him made her chest ache. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the movement of his feet as they walked toward their parting place, and she almost wished for the world to end at that moment. If it did, she would be spared from the agonizing speculation of what she could and could not have said or done, and Ichigo would be from… Well, she was afraid herself to sum up all that waited for him.

"Urahara came to me a few months ago." It was when they were at the station Inoue spoke. In the lazy air of that summer night, her whisper seemed thunderous. He could tell that it surprised even herself to have finally been able to say it.

"Oh."

"He…He asked me to give this to you."

She handed him a crumpled envelope. Ichigo seemed puzzled as he regarded the item in his hand and then looked up at her.

"I'm sorry." It was far too torturous to wait for a response from him, so she gritted her teeth and turned around to walk into the train station.

It felt like the worst treachery that the prospect of tomorrow still held hope for her and the sweet night air still made her heart swell.

* * *

It was the thought of Rukia that shook him out of his stupor. Realizing that he was still in the same place as Inoue had left him, he took one last look at the envelope and stuffed it into his pant pocket. There was not much point in reading it, not when he knew what it entailed.

The black night solidified around him as the hour grew late, and it occurred to him suddenly that Rukia could be walking alone in such a darkness. Her reassuring smile as she refused Inoue's offer to forgo Ichigo's company and her imperceptible tug to tighten her jacket around her as she walked out the door, he knew better than anything that he must return to her side. Thankfully the station was not a great distance away from her apartment, and so Ichigo broke into a run. A bit embarrassing at his age really, sick with regret like an adolescent.

He himself even jumped at his sharp knocks on Rukia's door. Like the scorn he wanted to yell to Rukia for running away, like the apology he wanted to mutter to her ear for the cowardly way he himself tried to run away from her, the sound reverberated in the dully lit corridor. When she finally opened the door to his relief, Ichigo wrapped her, eyes watery and red for whatever reason, in his arms and made it so that she could never forget his sincerity as he wished:

_Please never let me forget how I once loved another soul, __how we once loved each other._


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: Wow, I left this piece for a long time. This is what I have come up with, and I presume I should look for shelter now from the angry readers. XD

Please enjoy.

* * *

Who was comforting whom as they held each other? The answer to that, like all the other ones that they sought, was painfully elusive.

Rukia, it felt to Ichigo, was embattled about whether to stay in his arms any longer. He looked down to catch her in a moment where she had convinced herself to pull away. Ichigo tightened his hold just in time.

"I heard you talking to her." She seemed shy, having just admitted that something so trivial had bothered her so. "Not a single word you said, did I understand. What had changed? Weren't we in the least friends? Comrades?"

It had occurred to Ichigo then that his mistake had never been leaving or returning to Japan, but in that he had kept her in the dark for so long. Had they taken the right step? From strangers to comrades, wouldn't they have had far more peaceful lives if they had never met? From siblings to lovers, wouldn't they have had stayed together longer if they had remained what they were? This was all such a big mess that he would rather not having to clean up.

"Tell me, everything."

"How can a piece of the puzzle say what the entire picture looks like? I myself don't really even know."

"Try."

"Urahara came to Tokyo, shortly before I left for England…"

In Rukia's mind, a mural began to form, a falling together of pieces of every shape and colour. The last moments of darkness in her memory that she couldn't retrieve about that last battle, the impish gleam in Yoruichi's eyes at that snow shrouded train station, Inoue's shifting gaze as if hiding from something that was excessively bright in her eyes- in between them there was a connection that transcended their own stories, one that was very faint, but very human.

"You didn't have to leave."

"Remember _him_?" Like Ichigo it took her a while to realize who he was talking about. Against his chest, she shivered noticeably at the mention. "It was the traces of Hougyoku remaining in you that awoke him. The closer I stay with you, the more power for him to feed off of. Or so Urahara said. The other side of the world seemed far enough at the moment, but I guess I got dragged right back. Sorry, Rukia."

"How can you…!" Rukia understood the magnitude of the dilemma within a few seconds. There was an ironic smile on the tip of his lips. Rukia wanted to slap him. Did he really think that he had not a single care in the world? That it was fine for him to just lose his mind like this?

She made a sudden jerk to distance herself from him. A little frantic as she began to mutter, but by the end of her sentence it rose into a full blow roar.

"I can't… I can't let you do this. How could you not tell me, how could you do this to me? All this time!"

She buried her face in her hands, looking a little unsteady she stood. Her human body and mind felt insubstantial against the currents of the world, or fate, however one would call it. All this seem planned, so perfectly set out to separate them two. What power did she have to fight against what seemed like the will of God, punishing them for the immoral deed as siblings. He had known all this time! Ten years-

…He had known all this time knowing that it was all in vain. He alone was burdened by the realization.

A long silence reigned in the air, and Ichigo sat down to the floor against the wall. Had he been so wrong, that all he had done up to this point in his life was a completely mistake. It really was the worst taste in his mouth, everything crumbling down around him. Because his head hung to the lowest his neck would allow, he did not see coming the arms that pulled him into a loose embrace.

"You must have been exhausted, ne? Ten years was a long time to abandon yourself."

He burrowed deeper into her hold without a moment of hesitation. With his head pulled against her chest, Rukia knelt down against the wall.

"Doesn't look like there is much we can do, is there?" She said more to herself than to Ichigo, while rocking him slightly like a child. Chuckling to herself, she mused: "do we part ways again, or commit a double love suicide? I myself honestly don't know"

But at the moment, the thought sincerely crossed both minds just how wonderful it would be if the world ended right then and there.

"I remember being told once that those who could not be together in the last lifetime would become siblings in the next. It's ridiculous, isn't it? I wondered then what would happen to siblings who fell in love. If we die now, who is to say that we won't end up the same the next time around? So, I will be content with the knowledge that you are alive somewhere in this world. As long as I know there is some way I can find you, I'll be happy."

"Nii-san," Rukai said all of a sudden. She has never called him that, not even when they were children, so the words sounded rigid and gingerly on her tongue. "I should get used to saying it now. Nii-san, nii-san, Ichi-nii-san"

Like a child, she repeated the little mantra over and over, even giggling a little at the pun. But Ichigo could only look at the fake cheer that was so fragile on her face as she did so, not surprised when she finally choked on a sob. Regardless, she tried to continue through the tears.

"Nii-san…" Rukia let fall all semblance of rationality from moments before. She called his name time after time, savouring this last bit of ownership she has over him. As content as was with him far way in some corner of this Earth, living as best as he could, she had an inkling of unwillingness to give him up to someone else. She wanted to stump her feet on the ground and say how much she didn't want him to go, but as she called "nii-san" over and over again, she was reminded that more than anything, as his sister she would do anything for his happiness.

"Go," when she finally managed to calm her breath, she disentangled herself from him and stood up. Her pride stopped her from any more shows of sadness, as this by no means was the end of the world. Without Ichigo, the sun would still rise, she would still grow old, nothing would stop for such a trivial matter.

Ichigo dazed for a moment. Her words still echoed in his mind.

_I would do anything, for your happiness._

With her watching him intently, he lifted up his hand and drew something with his finger on her left cheek, taking great care with each stroke. Tracing the word repeatedly as if to deepen it, in the same manner he etched the lines of her face in his mind. He realized what a luxury it was to live with the memory of her, as it would inevitably fade with years.

"I will always find you, no matter what. Someday… Someday."

Rukia closed her eyes as she heard the door close between them. After a moment of daze, touching the word "Ichigo" that he drew on her face, she smiled in the slightest. By that mark that he left on her, he would always find her, the most important face even in a crowded room.

But at the present, she ran her hand across her stomach and muttered guiltily:

"Sorry, guess I will just have to love you twice as much now."


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: through thick and thin, this story is finally complete. The various ups and downs I went through would always be memorable as one of my most treasured stories. Thank you to everyone who followed this story even after the long delay. I put up the epilogue at the same time, so I would not be yelled at for this chapter.

Please, enjoy.

* * *

On Renji's body was still the scent of laughter he brought back from the movie theatre, but his mind was the same stagnant pool it ever was. Out of habit he lit a cigarette and poured himself a glass of stale whiskey that he kept in the fridge to save himself the agony of ever wanting ice and not have it.

Loneliness expands in the night like dough in the warmth of the oven. On the way out of the movie theatre, still hearing the ending that was full of embraces and made everyone stronger, he through with some distaste that if he had known that loneliness tasted the same everywhere, he would have stayed home that night.

He put the cigarette to his mouth and inhaled, then before the taste of tobacco was gone he swallowed it all with a gulp of the whiskey. Things of all sorts ferment in the night air. Tears poured from the glass of whiskey before him, its cool body having met with the humid summer air. Despite the pool of condensation that was already collecting at the bottom of the glass, the air seemed as humid as ever. Guess it was not just loneliness that was endless in the night air.

What he did not know, was that years later when he tried to tell the story of those days, he found that no one could understand a word he said. That, perhaps was true loneliness. He felt ever lonelier realizing that he knew nothing about loneliness when he thought it was his only company in those days.

Somehow, whatever transpired between that whiskey or the entire bottle of it afterwards and when Renji was suddenly thrown out of his sleep by a thunderous crash, managed to completely escape him. Upon opening his eyes and still not quite grasped where he was or what exactly he was doing, he caught the sight of the dimly illuminated corridor. He thought with a start that he was not in his own apartment, and upon further inspection in the darkness, his foggy brain produced the conclusion that somehow, he was in Rukia's. Finally lucidity caught up with him and he got up from the sofa in a maddening tangle of sheets and cover, knowing it must be her.

It was the mere distance of a few steps from the sofa to the bathroom where he was sure the noise came from, but the air was suffocatingly thick and the premonition he had the last time he found Rukia unconscious in her apartment floated before his eyes with a horrifying persistence.

Seeing her on the bathroom floor proved that he was by no means victim to bouts of neuroticism. Even worse than he had envisioned, she lay on the floor or rather collapsed in a pool of blood that was continuing to seep from beneath her. Various items Renji recognized from the bathroom cabinet scattered about her, tell-tale of the origin of the noise. Her face was ashen and the slightest trace of colour gone from her quivering lips, but somehow she still managed to turn to him, whose face was looming over hers in an immobilizing panic and apologized.

"S-sorry…"

He grabbed a hold of her spasming fingers that clawed at the cold tiles that offered her no comfort. With an anger that was by no means aimed at her, he stormed out to bring all the sheets and blanket he could find, seeing that she had lost far too much blood and wrapped her in a tight bundle. Oblivious to the racket that he made in the deathly quiet of the deep night, Renji held Rukia as closely to him as possible and made his way to the hospital. He secretly thanked God that at least there was no traffic this late at night.

Unfortunately, the moment he charged into the emergency room, the more than chaotic scene reminded him that Rukia, who was slowly bleeding away in his arms was merely another bloodied patient they had to clean up, whose life was no more dire than any other. They can never quite understand beyond the imaginable fear and panic that everyone assumes, just how important it was that she cannot continue to fade away.

The immediate demand for action blocked any rational thought from occurring, it did not occur to Renji in the slightest to wonder the cause of her situation. It was not until Rukia was finally carted off to an examination room and a doctor came out from it after half an hour that Renji received the slightest inkling of what had just happened.

"Are you the father?"

"The fa-father?" Renji stumbled on the unfamiliar concept. Why would he ask that, he though, it was not like Rukia was… He interrupted his own thought and eyes shot open at the realization.

_God…_

The doctor raised an eyebrow at Renji's reaction, and before he could think it through, he blurted out: "yes."

It confused Renji that the look on the doctor's face could be anymore uncomfortable, even when he said that he was the father.

"Are you of any relation to her? Blood ones, I mean." The doctor took all effort to make his point without actually saying aloud the awkward question.

"No, and why would that matter?"

"The extent of genetic mutation that the embryo had far exceeds the normal chance of it occurring when there is a diverse enough gene pool. It would be explained if you are of close blood relations, however if you are not and still would like to conceive in the future, I would recommend for you to go through a genetic screening."

Dazed as the last few sentences entered his ear, Renji's stomach tied into a knot as he realized all that had been happening since that year when they were sixteen years old. Thanking the doctor, he walked up to the door and gazed through the glass window at Rukia's pale sleeping face inside the room.

He sighed, profoundly.

Funny enough, despite the drama of the previous moments, a few hours later Renji found himself once again at the doors exiting the emergency room with a slightly better looking Rukia bundled up in the same bloodied blanket. Having finally gotten treatment her bleeding was hastily stopped and without so much as a cleanup, she was written off as another simple case of miscarriage due to indiscretion and hastily sent her home seeing that hospital beds were as full as they were.

Under the shimmering sky of a nearing dawn, Renji allowed himself the slightest sigh of relief. Standing outside the room where she was receiving treatment, he could hear her muffled sobs as she gained some consciousness. Knowing fully well whose child it was, he wondered just how correct it was to keep her in this world with him. She might have been better off if she never quite woke up.

Hailing a taxi, he gave up the thought of driving his own car back and stayed by her side to lend her the warmth that she was so lacking after all the blood lose.

* * *

After that night, for days now Rukia showed no sign of any grief or abnormality, letting the days slip by like any other. She ate and slept amply, with a cheer that was so genuinely fragile that if she let her mind wander for even a moment, she would be crushed by the knowledge of what she had lost.

Always the outsider when it came to this pair of siblings, Renji still could not fathom Ichigo's sudden appearance and disappearance, and Rukia's lack of reactions to them. But to him it was no matter, it was enough to know that she still shared a world with him, regardless of past and future.

He remembered, that night when he went to Rukia's apartment, he wanted to tell her:

_Let me watch over your happiness, even if it is not mine to be._

* * *

From outside the daycare playroom, Rukia watched her daughter who sat before a pile of Lego with an orange haired boy who seemed a year or two older. The small girl searched the pieces with her play mate with a ferocity unbefitting of their age, the objective obvious as the tip of their castle's spire was missing. When the two children spotted and at the same time reached for the said piece across the carpet, her daughter's small frame sprung forward and snatched it out from beneath the boy's hand. She placed it on top the castle with a satisfying smile, contrary to the slightly dejected expression that was so comically placed on the other child's face, from having had his thunder stolen.

Rukia met her daughter's still shining eyes with a smile and motioned that it was time to go. When she wrapped her hand around her tiny fingers, her head whipped back to the classroom, looking for the boy.

Ichigo's child, he must have been.

Even though the child's features failed to remind her of him, there was no mistaking the sensation of his hand that passed through her daughter to Rukia. The memory of her brother was so far away that the familiar mop of orange hair only occurred to her that moment. As she walked down the path before the school, she saw the boy coming out of the front door with his mother. The woman's purple hair and orange eyes made them a bizarre pair from where she stood from afar. Rukia wondered which one of them won, that woman who had his child or herself, who had Ichigo since the first day of her life.

But, none of that mattered now. She had once wondered what was the point of their story, to love despite all obstacles and to part way in the end anyways. Then when she thought about their mutual promise to live a happy life so that she and Ichigo can break the never ending cycle of ending up as siblings because of their failed love, and meet again as an ordinary pair of lovers in the next life time, the _point_ of their story was not so important anymore.

Telling herself that enough was enough, she tore her gaze from the two and gave her daughter's hand a slight pull forward, her smile as bright as can be.

"Come on, Dad's waiting for us there." Rukia pointed to the intersection ahead where Renji stood.

"Oh, Daddy is, isn't he?" The child's face lit up, her feet catching up with her mother's small run.

When Renji saw his wife and daughter coming his way, he opened the car door ready as he did every day, smiling in anticipation for the countless tomorrows that he may get to do so.

* * *

A/N: So I guess this last note is for **intercostalspace**, who asked me what the point of the story is, to have them meet and part time after time. After serious contemplation, I think what I want to say is that, Rukia and Ichigo loved each other so much that in order to be with each other again in the next life time, they were willing to give up this life time. Because they know they will love each other no matter where or when, they can trust in the promise of a better life the next time around. I hope this answers your question and that you will like the epilogue.


	17. Epilogue

A/N: Finally at the end of this story. This is the epilogue, as recompense to some of you who found the ending perhaps dissatisfactory. I hope that no one finds it confusing, if so, feel free to ask me in reviews.

* * *

_Splat._

A tear fell on the last word of the page, the moisture seeping quickly into the paper.

Rukia looked with disbelief at the drop of hot liquid, and wondered where it came from deep within her. Ichigo, who was just at the door of the den, walked over to her before the desk and wrapped her in a tight embrace, his chin resting on the top of her head.

"Idiot, who cries reading her own book?"

"Nothing really, it just took a long time to finally see it like this, published I mean." Rukia found an easy lie, how was she to say that since the first word of this story that she put on page, their happiness has become hers, a pair of sibling lovers whom she felt like she knew from somewhere.

"Remember the day that we met? The day that you stared at me through the coffee shop window like a total idiot?" Rukia said and chuckled.

"I remember thinking that you looked so sad, sadder than anyone I've even seen before, and it was up to me to make sure that you never have that expression on your face ever again." Ichigo tightened his embrace in protest of her insult and said, blushing a little too.

"That was the day that I first wrote down this story."

"You changed their names, to ours." Ichigo said with a surprised frown when he perused the last page of the book, which still lay open on the desk.

"I always thought of them as Rukia and Ichigo, somehow I knew that would be their names, as if I remember them from somewhere. You don't like it?"

Ichigo smiled indulgently at his little wife, "what I don't like is that it is 11 o'clock and the pregnant one in the house is still not going to bed."

Rukia sighed exasperatedly and mumbled as she stood up from her chair, "I'm fine, just because you are a doctor…"

Closing the book and turning off the desk lamp, Ichigo gave one last satisfying smile to see the name "Kurosaki Rukia" on the cover.

_See, I told you I would always find you._

_Idiot, I'm not going to thank you for that._


	18. Outtake

A/N: I have held onto these two vignettes for a very long time, and somehow I felt like posting it. This still is my most special story and I have been playing with the idea of telling two sides of this story, each from Ichigo and Rukia's perspectives, for quite a while now.

Their personal stories may not be as jarring and dramatic as the tale that you have read already, but each moment has the potential of greatness if only it is told.

I guess I just want to thank you all for your support for this story all these time.

* * *

Ichigo stood in front of his forgotten lunch on the kitchen table, still holding the glass of water he had just poured, it was just beginning to dawn upon him whose lunch he had eaten today. He had just assumed that their perspective bento boxes were mixed up in the morning rush, but it was blatantly obvious his had been sitting on the table for the whole day and whose lunch he had eaten.

The pain in his back from Rukia's shove on the way home lessened somewhat as he opened his untouched lunch to heat it up. Carrying the plate up the stairs to her room, Ichigo fought to consolidate the look of annoyance on his face, but to no avail as it nagged at him that she had not eaten anything all day because of him. He opened her bedroom door and found her bending over her math homework with a vengeance. Laying the plate down beside her, he caught her eye and asked:

"How did you sneak into my classroom?"

She dazed for a second, not realizing what he was talking about, but she soon caught on with a slight blush and turned her face away at an angle.

"I gave it to Inoue," she tried to keep her tone light, but her darting glances at the plate betrayed her hunger, "I wasn't hungry."

Ichigo knew that she wouldn't eat as long as he was there, so he got up to leave.

"Eat your lunch next time, you need it more than I do. I mean," he paused with a serious glance, "you'll never get any taller if you don't."

Ichigo closed the door just in time to hear her textbook hitting against it. He winced nonetheless, imagining if it really made contact with his head like it was meant to.

* * *

For the first time in her six years on this earth Rukia realized how big the world in fact was, and how grossly she overestimated her own abilities. Looking at the countless faces looming so far above her head, panic began to inflate uncontrollably in her chest. As the world became endless, without any boundaries, the primal fear rose that she could just get lost in it without the anchorage of her name or anyone who can tell who she was.

People, dressed so colourfully that Rukia felt scorned for a moment by their utter ignorance of the seriousness of her predicament, streamed by her small figure. She tried to compensate for the height difference by standing up on her toes and pulling her neck as tall as it would go, but the sight of her parents remained elusive. Apprehensive of the endless flow of the crowd before her and with a sensibility premature for a six year old, Rukia found a slightly quieter place and sat down in wait. Despite all, she still could not help but tense up the slightest whenever anyone looked as if they were approaching her waiting place. They will find her, she told herself.

The pain of being alone at a summer festival is one that even a young child would understand, a far too early taste of how it felt to be an outsider to a world of happiness. Ichigo's appearance at that moment, thus, could not be anymore timely. She saw his back first, the orange mop on his head separating him from the crowd, but she did not need that to recognize him. The shape of his hair, ears, the white of his neck and shoulder peeking through the collar of his disheveled yukata, they all came together to make one image that needed no processing in her mind, which at a mere glance transmitted to her that at least someone still knew who she was. She sat still in her place even as he came into view, waiting for him to find her. He would turn around, he would.

"Rukia!" He called when he did.

She stood up and tears fell, as she realized the need to do so for the first time that night. Like the moment Helen Keller finally understood "water", it became a tangible idea to her then that he was her brother, the reliance of a lifetime tied by blood. The idea stood clear in her mind for the rest of her life. Rukia asked if Ichigo remembered that day years later, and was disheartened when he shook his head. That moment was of such brilliance to her that she thought he saw it too against the night sky, the moment as "brother" sparked to life in her mind.


End file.
